her dressing-sown, waving a glass about in circles in the air in order to dissolve its contents. He drank the carbonate of soda down quickly, made a wry face, and fell back again.
“I think I’ll just have to give it all up, Ida,” he said.
“Oh, nonsense, Hanno. Just lie still on your back. You see, now: who was it kept making signs to you to stop eating, and who was it that wouldn’t do it?”
“Well, perhaps I’ll be all right. When will the things come, Ida?”
“To-morrow morning, first thing, my dearie.”
“I wish they were here—I wish I had them now.”
“Yes, yes, my dearie—but just have a good sleep now.” She kissed him, put out the light, and went away.
He lay quietly, giving himself up to the operation of the soda he had taken. But before his eyes gleamed the dazzling brilliance of the Christmas tree. He saw his theatre and his harmonium, and his book of mythology; he heard the choir-boys singing in the distance: “Rejoice, Jerusalem!” Everything sparkled and glittered. His head felt dull and feverish; his heart, affected by the rebellious stomach, beat strong and irregularly. He lay for long, in a condition of mingled discomfort, excitement, and reminiscent bliss, and could not fall asleep.
Next day there would be a third Christmas party, at Fräulein Weichbrodt’s. He looked forward to it as to a comic performance in the theatre. Therese Weichbrodt had given up her pensionnat in the past year. Madame Kethelsen now occupied the first storey of the house on the Mill Brink, and she herself the ground floor, and there they lived alone. The burden of her deformed little body grew heavier with the years, and she concluded, with Christian humility and submission, that the end was not far off. For some years now she had believed that each Christmas was her last; and she strove with all the powers at her command to give a depart-
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