when he sees him; he is called 'the Hatter,' for he is not quite all there; his surname he has lost long ago. He is always on the spot when there is anything going on, although his half-wittedness keeps him from playing any serious part in anything; he wears a rose in his buttonhole, and carries his hat about on the end of his walking-stick. Twice a day, about the time when a train starts, he goes to the station, taps the wheels, examines the luggage, and fusses about. Then when the guard blows his whistle, 'the Hatter' waves to the engine-driver, and the train starts. But 'the Hatter' deludes himself into thinking that his waving sends the train off. That's like me. I wave, and the train starts. But it would start without me, and my waving makes no difference, it's mere silly show. I'm sick of it.…"
The brother and sister were silent. Ditlinde looked at her lap in an embarrassed way, and Klaus Heinrich gazed, as he tugged at his little bow-shaped moustache, between her and the Grand Duke at the bright window.
"I can quite follow you, Albrecht," said he after a while, "though it is rather cruel of you to compare yourself and us with 'the Hatter.' You see, I too understand nothing about sliding scales and taxation of tourist traffic and peat-cutting, and there is such a lot about which I know nothing—everything which is covered by the expression 'the misery in the world'—hunger and want, and the struggle for existence, as it is called, and war and hospital horrors, and all that. I have seen and studied not one of these, except death itself, when father died, and that too was not death as it can be, but rather it was edifying, and the whole Schloss was illuminated. And at times I feel ashamed of myself because I have not knocked about the world. But then I tell myself that mine is not a com fortable life, not at all comfortable, although I 'wander on the heights of mankind,' as people express it, or perhaps
