At the corner he met two soldiers; he was about to bring up his hand perfunctorily to his cap in reply to their salute, when he noticed that they had not saluted him at all, and realised that instead of his cap he was wearing his top-hat. All this was somehow comic and he could not help smiling, because it was so absurd to think that old Count Leindorff, half paralysed as he was, thinking of nothing but his consultations with his doctors, should visit the Jäger Casino that evening. Probably the wisest thing would be simply to turn back, but as he could do that at any time he liked, he enjoyed the slight feeling of freedom this gave him and went on. Yet he would rather have gone for a stroll in the suburbs to see again the little cellar-like greengrocery-shop and the smoking paraffin lamp; but of course he really could not parade in the northern suburbs in his frock-coat and top-hat. Out there the twilight would probably be again as magical as on that other evening, but here in the actual centre of the city everything seemed hostile to Nature: above the noisy light and the innumerable shop-windows and the animated life of the streets, even the sky and the air seemed so urban and unfamiliar that it was like a fortunate and reassuring, yet disconcerting, rediscovery of familiar things when he found a little linen-shop, in whose narrow window lace, ruches and half-finished hand-worked embroideries picked out in blue were lying, and saw a glass door at the back which obviously led to a living-room. Behind the counter a white-haired woman—she seemed almost a lady—was sitting, and beside her was a young girl whose face he could not see; both of them were busied with hand-work. He examined the wares in the window and wondered whether it might not please Ruzena to present her with a few of those lace handkerchiefs. But this too seemed to him absurd, so he walked on, but at the first corner turned and went back again, driven by his desire to see the averted face of the girl. He bought three flimsy handkerchiefs without really deciding to give them to Ruzena, quite haphazardly, simply to please the old lady by buying something. The girl’s looks, however, were indifferent; indeed she actually looked cross. Then he went home.

In winter during the Court festivities, to which without admitting it the Baroness looked forward, and in spring during the races and the summer shopping, the Baddensen family occupied a trim house in the west end, and one Sunday morning Joachim von Pasenow paid the ladies his duty call. It was seldom that he visited this outlying villa suburb, an imitation of the English model which was spreading rapidly, although only rich families accustomed to a permanent equipage could live here without being keenly aware of the disadvantage of its distance from the city. But for those privileged persons who could afford to qualify this spatial disadvantage the place was a little rustic paradise, and walking through the trim streets between the villas Pasenow was pleasantly and delightfully penetrated by a sense of the superiority of the neighbourhood. During the last few days he had become uncertain about many things, and this in some inexplicable way was connected with Bertrand; some pillar or other of life had become shaky, and though everything still remained in its old place, because the parts reciprocally supported each other, yet along with a vague wish that the vaulted arch of this equilibrium might cave in and entomb beneath it all that was tottering and uncertain, a fear had arisen at the same time that the wish might really be fulfilled, and there had grown within him a longing for permanence, security and peace. Well, this comfortable neighbourhood with its castellar edifices in the most excellent Renaissance, Baroque and Swiss styles, surrounded by carefully tended gardens in which one could hear the scrape of gardeners’ rakes, the hiss of garden hoses and the splashing of fountains; all this breathed out a great and insular security, so that one could not really believe in Bertrand’s dictum that even in England every day was not a holiday. From open windows rang out études by Stephen Heller and Clementi: the daughters of these families could devote themselves to their pianos in complete security: theirs was a safe and gentle existence, filled with friendship until friendship should give place to love and love once more die away into friendship. Far off, but not too far off, a cock crowed as if he too wished to indicate the rusticity of this well-planned suburb: yes, if Bertrand had grown up on the land he would not be spreading insecurity, and had they allowed Joachim himself to stay at home he wouldn’t have been so susceptible to this feeling of insecurity. It would be lovely to walk with Elisabeth through the fields, and take the ears of the ripening corn between one’s expert fingers, and in the evenings, when the heavy odour of the byre was carried on the wind, to cross the neatly swept yard and look on while the cows were being milked. Elisabeth would stand there among the great rustical beasts, far too slight for the ponderousness of her surroundings, and what in his mother had seemed merely natural and homely would be in her both homely and touching. But for him it was much too late for all that, for him whom they had made an outcast, and he was—now the thought struck him—as homeless as Bertrand.

And now the fold of the garden, whose railings were concealed by hedges, enclosed him. The security of nature here was still further enhanced by the fact that the Baroness had had one of the plush sofas from the drawing-room brought out into the garden: it stood there like something exotic reared in a hot-house, with its turned legs and swivelled feet resting on the gravel, lauding the friendliness of a climate and a civilized nature which permitted it such a station; its hue was a fading damask rose. Elisabeth and Joachim sat on iron garden-chairs, whose metal seats were pierced with stars like frozen Brussels lace.

After they had exhausted the excellences of the neighbourhood, which were bound to appeal particularly to one accustomed to and fond of country ways, Joachim was asked about his life in the town, and he could not help expressing his longing for the country and trying to justify it. He found that the ladies completely agreed with him; the Baroness in particular assured him again and again that—he mustn’t be surprised—but often for days, yes, even for weeks, she never went into the centre of the town, so terrified, yes, terrified, was she of the hubbub, the noise and the tremendous traffic. Well, replied Pasenow, here she had a real haven, and the conversation flowed again for some time round the theme of the superior neighbourhood, until the Baroness, as if she had a delightful surprise in store, informed him almost with an air of secrecy that they had been offered the chance of buying the little house which they had come to love so much. And in the anticipatory joy of possession she invited him to look through the house, to make a tour du propriétaire, she added ironically and with a slight touch of embarrassment.

As usual the reception-rooms lay on the ground floor and the bedrooms upstairs. Yes, in the dining-room, which with its carved old German furniture breathed out an oppressive comfort, they were going to make a winter-garden with a fountain, and perhaps transform the drawing-room too. Then they climbed the stairs, at the top and the bottom of which were velvet hangings, and the Baroness went on opening door after door, passing over only the more intimate ones. Hesitatingly and with a slight blush Elisabeth’s room was revealed to the masculine eye, but even the cloud of white lace with which her bed, window, washing-table and mirror were hung did not fill Joachim with such a painful and ashamed feeling as the bedroom of her parents; indeed he could almost have reproached the Baroness for making him free of the household and compelling him to be a co-witness of her shame. For now, before his eyes, before everybody’s eyes, plainly displayed even before Elisabeth, whom he felt such knowledge confounded and violated, the two beds stood side by side, ready for the sexual uses of the Baroness, whom he now suddenly saw before him, not indeed naked, but unladylike and brazen: here was the double bedchamber, and now in a flash it seemed to him the central point of the house, its hidden and yet obviously visible altar, round which all the other rooms were built. And in the same flash he saw clearly that every house in the long row of villas which he had passed had as its central point a similar bedroom, and that the sonatinas and the études sent out through the open windows, behind which the spring breeze softly waved the lace curtains, were only intended to veil the actual facts.