Dream Story Read Online Free Page A

women were strolling about in a pitiful attempt to bag their game. It's phantomlike, he thought. And in retrospect the students, too, with their blue caps, suddenly seemed unreal. The same was true of Marianne, her fiance, her uncle and aunt, all of whom he pictured standing hand in hand around the deathbed of the old Councilor. Albertina, too, whom he could see in his mind's eye soundly sleeping, her arms folded under her head—even his child lying in the narrow white brass bed, rolled up in a heap, and the red-cheeked governess with the mole on her left temple—all of them seemed to belong to another world. Although this idea made him shudder a bit, it also reassured him, for it seemed to free him from all responsibility, and to loosen all the bonds of human relationship.
    One of the girls wandering about stopped him. She was still a young and pretty little thing, very pale with red-painted lips. She also might lead to a fatal end, only not as quickly, he thought. Is this cowardice too? I suppose really it is. He heard her steps and then her voice behind him. "Won't you come with me, doctor?"
    He turned around involuntarily. "How do you know who I am?" he asked.
    "Why, I don't know you," she said, "but here in this part of town they're all doctors, aren't they?"
    He had had no relations with a woman of this sort since he had been a student at the Gymnasium. Was the attraction this girl had for him a sign that he was suddenly reverting to adolescence? He recalled a casual acquaintance, a smart young man, who was supposed to be extremely successful with women. Once while Fridolin was a student he had been sitting with him in an all-night cafe, after a ball. When the young man proposed to leave with one of the regular girls of the place, Fridolin looked at him in surprise. Thereupon he answered: "After all, it's the most convenient way— and they aren't by any means the worst."
    "What's your name?" Fridolin asked the girl.
    "Well, what do you think? Mizzi, of course." She unlocked the house-door, stepped into the hallway and waited for Fridolin to follow her.
    "Come on," she said when he hesitated. He stepped in beside her, the door closed behind him, she locked it, lit a wax candle and went ahead, lighting the way.—Am I mad? he asked himself. Of course I shall have nothing to do with her.
    An oil-lamp was burning in her room, and she turned it up. It was a fairly pleasant place and neatly kept. At any rate, it smelled fresher than Marianne's home, for instance. But then, of course, no old man had been lying ill there for months. The girl smiled, and without forwardness approached Fridolin who gently kept her at a distance. She pointed to a rocking-chair into which he was glad to drop.
    "You must be very tired," she remarked. He nodded. Undressing without haste, she continued: "Well, no wonder, with all the things a man like you has to do in the course of a day. We have an easier time of it."
    He noticed that her lips were not painted, as he had thought, but were a natural red, and he complimented her on that.
    "But why should I rouge?" she inquired. "How old do you think I am?"
    "Twenty?" Fridolin ventured.
    "Seventeen," she said, and sat on his lap, putting her arms around his neck like a child.
    Who in the world would suspect that I'm here in this room at this moment? Fridolin thought. I'd never have thought it possible an hour or even ten minutes ago. And— why? Why am I here? Her lips were seeking his, but he drew back his head. She looked at him with sad surprise and slipped down from his lap. He was sorry, for he had felt much comforting tenderness in her embrace.
    She took a red dressing-gown which was hanging over the foot of the open bed, slipped into it and folded her arms over her breast so that her entire body was concealed.
    "Does this suit you better?" she asked without mockery, almost timidly, as though making an effort to understand him. He hardly knew what to answer.
    "You're right," he said. "I am