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with Frau Kamelspinner, the taxidermist’s wife. And meanwhile—wonder of wonders—he was having a difficult but delicious conversation with this misty lady in this radiant mist. It was all very dangerous; every word she said might trip him.
    Martha noticed his slight stammer and the nervous way he had of sniffing now and then. “Dazzled and embarrassed, and so very young,” she reflected with a mixture of contempt and tenderness, “warm, healthy young wax that one can manipulate and mold till its shape suits your pleasure. He should have shaved, though, before coming.” And she said by way of experiment, just to see how he would react:
    “If you plan to work at a smart store, my good sir, you must cultivate a more confident manner and get rid of that black down on your manly jaws.”
    As she had expected, Franz lost what composure he had.
    “I shall get new spectables, I mean respectacles,” he expostulated, or so his flustered lisp sounded.
    She allowed his confusion to spin itself out, telling herself that it was very good for him. Franz really did feel most uncomfortable for an instant but not quite in the way she imagined. What put him off was not the remonstrance but the sudden coarseness of her tone, a kind of throaty “hep!,” as if, to set the example, she were jerking back her shoulders at the word “confident.” This was not in keeping with his misty image of her.
    The jarring interpolation passed quickly: Martha melted back into the glamorous haze of the world surrounding him and resumed her elegant conversation.
    “Autumn is chillier around here than in your native orchards. I love luscious fruit but I also like a crisp cold day.There is something about the texture and temperature of my skin that simply thrills in response to a breeze or a keen frost. Alas, I have to pay for it.”
    “Back home there is still bathing,” observed Franz. He was all set to tell her about the celebrated limpid lyrical river running through his native town under arched bridges, and then between cornfields and vineyards; about how nice it was to go swimming there in the buff, diving right off the little “nicker raft” you could hire for a few coppers; but at that instant a car honked and drew up at the gate, and Martha said: “Here is my husband.”
    She fixed her eyes on Dreyer, wondering if his aspect would impress the young cousin, and forgetting that Franz had seen him before and could hardly see him now. Dreyer came at his fast bouncy walk. He wore an ample white overcoat with a white scarf. Three rackets, each in a differently colored cloth case—maroon, blue, and mulberry—protruded from under his arm; his face with its tawny mustache glowed like an autumn leaf. She was less vexed by his exotic attire than that the conversation had been interrupted, that she was no longer alone with Franz, that it was no longer exclusively she who engrossed and amazed him. Involuntarily her manner toward Franz changed, as if there had been “something between them,” and now came the husband, causing them to behave with greater reserve. Besides, she certainly did not want to let Dreyer see that the poor relative whom she had criticized before knowing him had not turned out too bad after all. Therefore when Dreyer joined them she wanted to convey to him by means of an inconspicuous bit of pantomime that his arrival would now liberate her at last from a boring guest. Unfortunately Dreyer as he approached did not take his eyes off Franz who, peering at the gradually condensing light part of themottled mist, got up and was preparing to make a bow. Dreyer, who was observant in his own way and fond of trivial mnemonic tricks (he often played a game with himself, trying to recollect the pictures in a waiting room, that pathetic limbo of pictures), had immediately, from a distance, recognized their recent travelling companion and wondered if perhaps he had brought the unopened letter from a milliner that Martha had mislaid during