She had rented a small tobacco shop on Bethlehemsplatz, a wooden stand in the corner of the houses, where she spent the day selling cigars. In the living room she shared with Aunt Regina there was always a peculiar mix of the smells of cellar air, withered wreaths of Corpus Christi, incense, and the dry odor of the tobacco supplies. For Severin all of it had a special allure, trembling with childish ideas. His aunt’s room was filled with consecrated candles and pictures of saints, with well-thumbed hymnals and coral crosses. From this room his soul had taken its first fervor, and his childhood had been haunted by it.

A little of this fervor stirred in him again. He saw the Kleinseite on the other side of the river, and saw Karls-brücke, where priests were walking in long robes, paired up like schoolboys. Something of the tone of St. Nepomuk’s Days had remained in the air, which brushed quietly over the water and stirred the withered acacia blossoms at his feet. The wooden platform and its glass lanterns were still standing on the bridge, in front of the martyr’s statue, where farmers from the villages gathered every year to honor their patron. Severin thought of the feverish anticipation that the Bohemian saint’s feast had always brought to his childhood. On the eve of St. Nepomuk’s Day he and his father made a pilgrimage to the riverbank, where people had already been gathering for hours. When darkness fell, someone set off a firework display, and the slender rockets rose into the sky with a soft crackling. Below, the light-strung boats floated on the river, and on the bridge peasants prayed at St. Nepomuk’s altar.

Severin had not been to a church in years. The ardor of his youth had spent itself in blind and unrestrained fanaticism. From the lassitude that held him, which he bore with resignation from one day to the next, there now arose an old and long-forgotten yearning in his boyish soul. The afternoon sun had boiled a warm mist from the fragrance of the acacias and the breath of the river, and its light decay roused him. Identically clad girls from a school for orphans walked along the pavement on the riverbank, conversing in whispers. A nun accompanied them, wrapped up in her garments. For an instant the young eyes under her cowl regarded Severin. They were gray and pious and had stars in their centers, like Aunt Regina’s had had.

He rose hesitantly and searched the pocket of his coat for a cigarette. Across from him the plaque of the Biblical Society shone in the light. Many years before, during school vacation, he had bought a Bible here for very little money. He did not have it for long; it got lost, like most of the books he owned. He only thought of it now because today he felt again the wish for the heavy stories of the testaments, darkened by age, and the clear wisdom of the evangelists.

The children were playing in the sand in front of the statue of Emperor Franz. An old man with a white beard and a green eyeshade over his crooked glasses was selling sticky sugarcanes and hard rolls with salt and poppy-seeds. Severin bought the rest of his wares and handed them out to the children. The old man carried his basket home happily; the servant girls on the benches drew closer together and giggled.

A gentle and blissful enthusiasm, interwoven with the faded events of his schooldays, took hold of him. His thoughts felt cautiously back into this world, to the naive enchantment of the school chapel, to the timid feeling that came when he touched the cool communion cloth with his fingertips.