Then, when she offered him her hand, he took it and kissed it. She looked into his eyes with amazement and smiled. But it was no longer the smile he remembered. Her mouth was white and unrouged and was a little twisted by a forced apathy.

And where is the hat with the red ostrich feather? — Severin asked.

Oh — she exclaimed, astonished. She raised her head and turned it in circles, as though she were remembering a dream. Then she spoke slowly, and her words had a harsh sound, veiled by a light hoarseness:

The hat with the red feather — it’s been gone for a long time —


Severin spent the entire evening by Karla’s side. The noise of the conversations was constantly increasing, and blonde Ruschena, adorned and groomed like a doll, took out her mandolin. The young models had stopped playing the dice game. They sat at the table chattering, eating little sandwiches, and sipping the champagne the servant brought to them. Lazarus Kain had taken a seat near them and was telling anecdotes. A few of the men had come with their girls, who sat in the comfortable chairs of the atelier, chewing and showing their legs beneath their short skirts. An unbelievably gaunt man was sitting next to Doctor Konrad. He was wearing a fashionable frock coat and had a noble air about him. A succession of guests approached, and he told their fortunes from the lines of their palms. Severin went up to him and asked him to do the same. The gaunt man looked at him searchingly from behind his round glasses, and held Severin’s hand in front of his face longer than he had any of the others.

You have experienced a destiny — he said when he looked up again — a great destiny, what was it?

I haven’t experienced anything — Severin said, and pulled his arm away.

Then it will come — You have a hand to be feared.

Severin went back to his place and sat down next to Karla. He was angry that he had followed the book dealer and come up here with him. Lazarus sat with the laughing wenches and amused himself. His angular shoulders bounced and his small Jewish skull trembled. Severin listened to the uproar with a feeling of sadness and loathing. The thick tobacco smoke rose into the air in wide bands and wrapped itself around the light from lamps that hung from the ceiling by decoratively worked chains. Now and then Doctor Konrad went from one group to another and, with the exaggerated politeness of a Slav, played the host. He was a large man with a full beard and must have been about thirty years old. Under his dinner jacket he wore a bright, fantastic vest with blue buttons. His clever face had something of a Tartar beauty about it. Severin looked at him and tried to figure out why this man, whose title of doctor took on a strange sound in these surroundings, spent his days in extravagant and meaningless debaucheries. To him the erotic allure was missing from situations where a few models lifted their skirts above their knees with insolent grace, where pretty Ruschena played sentimental verses and indecent songs, where the champagne made the women drunk and old Lazarus exhausted his repertoire of stale jokes. More than ever he thirsted for a genuine life, one that bestowed flowers and terror and blew the daily round to pieces with its stormy jaws. Until now he had had to satisfy himself with surrogates. His relationship with Zdenka, which lacked any great form, the game with Susanna, and now the vulgar last dance in Konrad’s atelier, where, in an evil mood, he sat next to Karla.