e corner of the sofa
that he occupied yesterday, sat my poor friend Sebastian before an
empty plate covered with flies, his eyes wandering beyond the newspaper
into empty space. A singular thrill came over me, half jealousy, half
satisfaction, at his having got on no further. Just as I was watching
him, he made a movement as if to take up his cap and leave. I drew back
from the window, and crept along the houses like a thief who has had
the narrowest escape of capture. When I got to the house where I was
expected, I had of course to collect my wits. I was more lively than
usual, and paid my court to the daughters of the house with all the
awkward nonchalance of a man of the world of sixteen, nay, I even
allowed myself to be persuaded to read out my last poem, and drank
several glasses of strong Hungarian wine, which made me neither wiser
nor more modest. When ten o'clock struck, I suddenly took my departure
under the pretext of an appointment with a friend. To keep late hours
seemed to me congruous with the character of a youthful poet. Had
people but known that the real engagement was the copying out fair a
German essay, all the halo would have vanished!

And as it was that luckless essay fared badly enough. The night was
wondrously beautiful. After long-continued rain, the air was as
soft and exquisitely still as a human heart just reconciled to a
long-estranged friend (I involuntarily fall back into the lyrical style
of those early days!), and the sky sparkled and shone with thousands of
newly-washed stars. In spite of the lateness of the hour, girls and
women went chattering through the streets without hat or shawl, with
merely a kerchief thrown over their heads, as though the lovely night
had enticed them out just to inhale, before going to bed, one draught
of fresh air after the discomfort of the day. Every window stood open,
the roses gave out their fragrance; one heard Mendelssohn's "Songs
without words" played on the piano, or some sweet female voice quietly
singing to itself.

How it happened I did not know, but all of a sudden there I was again
at the little shop, and had hold of the door handle before I could make
out even to myself what it was that led me there.

As I entered, Lottka raised her head from the counter where it had been
resting on her arm. Her eyes shewed that she had been asleep. The book,
over which she had been tiring herself, fell from her lap as she rose.

"I have disturbed you, Miss