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they’d have rented our rooms to someone else long ago. And the secretary from Linz, I asked her to look in for a minute in the evening and at midday, but all she said was, ‘All right,’ that cold prune-face, the kind of thing that didn’t tell you whether she really would or not. Maybe I ought to wire them to call it off? What does my aunt care whether I come or not? Mother’s kidding herself that we matter to them. If we did, they’d have written once in a while during all that time in America, or sent a care package during the bad years the way thousands of people did. All those packages I handled myself, and never one for Mother from her very own sister. No, I shouldn’t have given in, and I’d call it off now if it was up to me. I don’t know why, but I’ve got such a bad feeling. I shouldn’t go, I shouldn’t go.”
    The shy little blond man gasps out reassuring things as he hastens to keep up. No, don’t worry, he’ll look in on her mother that day himself, that’s a promise. She has the right if anyone does to give herself a vacation at long last, she hasn’t had a day of rest in years. He’d be the first to tell her if it was irresponsible. But not to worry, he’ll send news every day, every day. He blurts out whatever comes into his head to set her mind at ease, and in fact his urgent talk does her some good. She’s not really listening to what he’s saying, but she feels she has someone she can depend on.
    At the station, the train already has the signal. Christine’s timid escort clears his throat in discomfort and embarrassment. She notices that he’s been shifting from one foot to the other—he has something to say but lacks the courage to say it. At last, during a pause, he bashfully takes a white folded object out of his breast pocket. She must forgive him, of course it’s not a gift, just a little something, maybe it’ll come in handy. Surprised, she opens the long handmade paper construction. It’s a map of her route from Linz to Pontresina, to be unfolded accordion-style . All the rivers, mountains, and cities along the train routeare microscopically labeled in black ink, the mountains shaded in with finer or coarser hatching corresponding to their altitude and with meter figures shown in tiny numerals, the rivers drawn in blue pencil, the cities marked in red; distances are indicated in a separate table at bottom right, exactly as on the Geographical Institute’s large maps for schools, but here neatly, painstakingly, lovingly copied by a little assistant schoolmaster . Christine blushes with surprise. Her pleasure encourages the timid little man and he produces another small map, this one square and trimmed in gold braid: a map of the Engadine, copied from the large-scale Swiss ordnance map, with every hill and dale artfully reproduced down to the tiniest detail. In the center is a building given special distinction by a tiny circle around it in red ink: that’s the hotel where she’ll be staying, he explains, he located it in an old Baedeker. This is so she’ll always be able to find her bearings on outings and never have to worry about getting lost. She’s truly moved and thanks him. This sweet man must have secretly spent days in libraries in Linz or Vienna finding models to copy, must have sharpened his pencils a hundred times and bought special drafting pens to draw and ink these maps, tenderly, patiently, for nights on end, just to produce from his meager means something that was suitable and practical and would delight her. Her journey hasn’t even begun, but he’s anticipated it as though experiencing it himself, at her side for every kilometer of the trip; her route and what will happen to her must have been in his thoughts day and night. She’s touched, and as she now extends her hand to him in thanks (he’s still in shock over his own daring) she sees his eyes behind his glasses as though for the first time. They’re the fine mild blue of a child’s, a blue