When I came to myself I was bewildered and exhausted. The white light of the corridor shone in the polished floor. I was not among the immortals, not yet. I was still, as ever, on this side of the riddle of suffering, of wolf-men and t plexities. I had found no happy spot, no endurable resting place. There must be an end of it.
In the great mirror, Harry stood opposite me. He did not appear to be very flourishing. His appearance was much the same as on that night when he visited the professor and sat through the da the Black Eagle. But that was far behind, years, turies behind. He had grown older. He had learo dance. He had visited the magic theater. He had heard Mozart laugh. Dang and women and knives had no more terrors for him. Even those who have average gifts, given a few hundred years, e to maturity. I looked for a long time at Harry in the looking glass. I still knew him well enough, aill bore a faint resemblao the boy of fifteen who one Sunday in March had met Rosa on the cliffs and taken off his school cap to her. A he had grown a few turies older sihen. He had pursued philosophy and musid had his fill of war and his Elsasser at the Steel Helmet and discussed Krishna with men of ho learning. He had loved Erid Maria, and had been Hermines friend, and shot down motorcars, and slept with the sleek ese, and entered Mozart and Goethe, and made sundry holes in the web of time as iys disguise, though it held him a prisoill. And suppose he had lost his pretty chessman again, still he had a fine blade in his pocket. On then, old Harry, old weary loon.
Bah, the devil—how bitter the taste of life! I spat at Harry in the looking glass. I gave him a kid kicked him to splinters. I walked slowly along the eg corridor, carefully sing the doors that had held out so many glowing promises. Not one now showed a single annou. Slowly I passed by all the hundred doors of the Magic Theater. Was not this the day I had been to a masked ball? Hundreds of years had passed sihen. Soon years would cease altogether. Something, though, was still to be done. Hermine awaited me. A strange marriage it was to be, and a sorrowful wave it was that bore me on, drearily bore me on, a slave, a wolf-man. Bah, the devil!
I stopped at the last door. So far had the sorrowful wave borne me. O Rosa! O departed youth! O Goethe! O Mozart!
I ope. What I saw was a simple aiful picture. On a rug on the floor lay two naked figures, the beautiful Hermine and the beautiful Pablo, side by side in a sleep of deep exhaustion after loves play. Beautiful, beautiful figures, lovely pictures, wonderful bodies. Beh Hermines left breast was a fresh round mark, darkly bruised—a love bite of Pablos beautiful, gleamih. There, where the mark was, I plunged in my ko the hilt. The blood welled out over her white and delicate skin. I would have kissed away the blood if everything had happened a little differently. As it was, I did not. I only watched how the blood flowed and watched her eyes open for a little moment in pain and deep wonder. What makes her wonder? I thought. Then it occurred to me. that I had to shut her eyes. But they shut again of themselves. So all was done. She only turned a little to one side, and from her armpit to her breast I saw the play of a delicate shadow. It seemed that it wished to recall something, but what I could not remember. Then she lay still.
For long I looked at her and at last I waked with a shudder and turo go. Then I saw Pa