But instead, he rubbed his hand clumsily and hesitantly upon his trousers leg before he grasped the hand that Jack held out to him. Then the two of them together went back into the beer hall and joined their friends where they all sat by the window. Hartmann greeted the rest of them shyly and awkwardly, and at first seemed ill at ease as if he thought this big cafe was much too fine for a working man. An immense weight of sorrow and dejection bowed him down and, at length, shaking his head slightly, he said quietly to Jack:

“Oh, Frederick, Frederick! I have known so much trouble in my life.”

For a space the others had said nothing. Then Ludwig took his pipe out of his mouth and held it in the great mutton of his hand upon the table. Then he said quietly, in confirmation, “Ja-a-a. Ich weiss.”

It was so quietly spoken that it seemed a whisper rather than a word, and suddenly it seemed to Jack that at the instant it was spoken all the others had confirmed it like an echo, and that in it was all the sorrowful and resigned wisdom of the earth. And yet he could not swear that anyone had spoken. They sat there quietly, in their strange communion of sorrow and kindliness, and resignation, they drew with slow meditation on their pipes and drank their beer.

It seemed to Jack now that all he had wanted to say to them need not be said. A thousand times he had looked forward to such a meeting. He had foreseen their wonderment and awe when they saw how fine a man he had become. It had thrilled him to think of the great figure he would cut among them when he returned and they would see him, not old and shabby and provincial as they were, but a man of urbane and distinguished manner, a man of high position in the great world, a man of power and quiet authority, who sat familiarly at dinner every day with famous people, and who dealt every day with sums of money which would have beggared their whole city. In years, they were no older than he was and yet their flesh was old and loose and sagging, while his was ruddy, plump and firm. Their teeth, clamped on their pipes, were old and blackened and decayed while his were still white and sound, cunningly braced and filled with gold and porcelain by the finest dentists, and everyone could see at once the difference between their cheap ill-fitting clothes and the expensive and “distinguished” garments which had been made for him by a London tailor. Here, for instance, was old Grauschmidt sitting at his side and wearing an incredible wing-collar, a stringy little necktie, a shoddy little suit of an outlandish cut, with a funny little hat of green that had a brush of horsehair at the side of it. If he wore that outfit in New York he would have a crowd of urchins howling at his heels within five minutes, and yet, Jack felt none of the triumph and superiority he had expected to feel.

He had been eager to tell them of his wealth, his great possessions, of the glittering life he lived, and of the fabulous world he lived in. He wanted to tell them of his three expensive motor cars, and of his chauffeur to whom he paid over seven hundred marks a month—yes! with fine food and lodging for his family thrown in!—which was more than most of them could earn in three. He wanted to tell them of the great house he was building in the country which would cost him more than five hundred thousand marks when it was finished, and of the apartment in the city to which he had recently moved, and for which he paid a rent of more than fifty thousand marks a year. And he wanted to tell them of the four maids who got three hundred fifty marks a month apiece, and of his cook—a German woman!—whom he paid five hundred marks a month, and of his offices, where he paid two hundred thousand marks a year in rent, and where even the humblest of his fifty employees—even the office boys—were paid four hundred marks a month.

He had licked his chops in triumph a thousand times as he foresaw the look of stupefaction on their faces when he told this tale of magic. He could see the pipe poised halfway to the gaping mouth, and hear their guttural fascinated grunts of disbelief and wonder as he went on from height to dizzy height, telling his story quietly and modestly, without vain boasting or affectations. He would laugh good-naturedly at their astonishment, and when they asked him if such marvels as he had described were not almost unheard of, even in the legendary country where he lived, he would assure them they were not—that he was nothing but a minnow in an enormous pond, and that he had many friends who considered him a poor man—Ja! who spent and earned more in a month than he did in a year!

With fast-gathering impulse, in a tidal sweep of strong desire thicker and faster than his power to utter them, the images of splendor swept up from his memory. He would tell them of great buildings soaring eighty floors into the sky, and of towns the size of Koblenz housed within a single building. He would tell them of a city built upon a rock, and of tunnels bored below the whole length of the city through which at every moment of the day nameless hordes of men were hurled to destinies in little cells.

Then he would tell them of the night-time world of wealth and art and fashion in which he cut a figure. He would tell them of the style and wit and beauty of his daughter, and of pearl necklaces he gave her, and of money spent upon her clothes in one year’s time that would keep a German family comfortably for ten. He would tell of the ability and shrewdness of his wife’s sister—as smart a woman as ever lived!—and of her great position as vice president of a fashionable woman’s store. He would speak casually of the four trips she made to Paris every year, and of the fortunes which the wives and mistresses of the millionaires spent every year for clothes. He would tell of the business ability of his only son, who was barely twenty-four, but who was prized and trusted like a man of forty by his employers, and who earned four hundred marks a week in a broker’s office.

Finally he would tell them of his beautiful and talented wife. He would tell them of the high place she had won for herself in the art-world of the city, and of the famous people who knew her and respected her, and how celebrated men and women came and sat around his table every night, and how they called him “Fritz” and how he called them by their first names, and knew all the ways and secrets of their lives.

Jack had thought and dreamed of this triumphant moment for thirty years, but now that it had come, he could not talk to them. All that he had to say stormed wildly at the gates of speech, but when he tried to speak he could not. Instead, a fast thick jargon broke harshly from his lips, filling his ears with terror, and stirring the air about him with its savage dissonance.