ed about as gaily as in summer, and there
is no foliage to afford shade; the tendrils which were formerly trained
into cooling bowers have probably a good reason of their own for not
budding as yet.

I turned back, and for the first time for many days ventured on the
Wassermauer, which was not much frequented.

My heart beat as though everyone already knew that I had slipped into
the society of the doomed, under false colours, and had been sent back
with a protest.

I tried to find a ready answer in case anybody should ask me; "and so
you have changed your mind, and are not going to die?" All the small
sins I had committed in the belief that it was pardonable to gratify
every wish, as the wish of one dying, rose in array against me. How
impolite, how regardless of giving offence I had been to every one for
whose good opinion I did not care. There is that stout old gentleman
with a small thermometer in his button-hole, who fastens or unfastens
one of the buttons of his overcoat at every degree more or less of
cold. At first he had lectured me about my health, and I had not only
continued my imprudent courses but even, when I once met the fat
philanthropist, unconsciously let down my veil, to his great
astonishment. There is that young girl, with whom I never exchanged
another word, because after the first quarter of an hour of our
acquaintance she kissed me, and read aloud a poem which her brother had
composed. There is that lady with her two big mustachioed sons, who
with great foresight, had cautioned me against any flirtation with
them, and after all was much offended when I followed her advice and
turned my back on them; and above all the poor little chronicler of
scandal, who can now only come out by means of an arm-chair, but still
has strength enough left to rejoice over the weaknesses of her fellow
creatures. What a character she will give me, when she arrives in the
next world before me! Well I hope He who judges up yonder will be more
lenient than the good people here below. I was thinking over all this,
and feeling very much provoked at my own paltry cowardice which seemed
to flourish again and prevented me from attaining the indifference and
disdain with which I had formerly looked down on the life here, when I
reached the Winter garden, and glancing along the benches and arbours,
what I saw there put the finishing stroke on my remaining courage.
There sat bolt upright, and expanding around her the skirts