that he ought to continue his studies. Old Hessling, having marched through the Brandenburger Tor in 1866 and 1871, decided to send Diederich to Berlin.
As he did not care to venture far from the neighbourhood of Friederichstrasse he rented a room up in Tieckstrasse, so that he had only to walk straight down and could not miss the University. As he had nothing else to do, he went there twice a day, and in the intervals he often wept from homesickness. He wrote a letter to his father and mother thanking them for his happy childhood. He seldom went out unless he had to. He scarcely dared to eat; he was afraid to spend his money before the end of the month, and he would constantly feel his pocket to see if it was still there.
Lonely as he felt, he still did not go to Blücherstrasse with his father's letter to Herr Göppel, the cellulose manufacturer, who came from Netzig and also did business with Hessling. He overcame his shyness on the fourth Sunday, and hardly had the stout red-faced man, whom he had so often seen in his father's office, waddled up to meet him than Diederich wondered why he had not come sooner. Herr Göppel immediately asked after everybody in Netzig, but especially old Buck. Although his beard was now grey he still respected old Buck as he had done when he was a boy like Diederich, only it was for different reasons. He took off his hat to such a man, one of those whom the German people should esteem more highly than certain persons whose favourite remedy was blood and iron, for which the nation had to pay so dearly. Old Buck was a Forty. Eighter, and had actually been condemned to death. "It is to such people as old Buck," said Herr Göppel, "that we owe the privilege of sitting here as free men." And, as he opened another bottle of beer: "nowadays we are expected to let ourselves be trampled on with jackboots.…"
Herr Göppel confessed himself a liberal opponent of Bismarck's. Diederich agreed with everything that Göppel said: he had no opinion to offer about the Chancellor, the young Emperor and freedom. Then he became uncomfortable, for a young girl had come into the room, and at the first glance her elegance and beauty frightened him.
"My daughter Agnes," said Herr Göppel.
A lanky youth, in his flowing frock-coat, Diederich stood there, blushing furiously. The girl gave him her hand. No doubt she wanted to be polite, but what could one say to her? Diederich said yes, when she asked him if he liked Berlin; and when she asked if he had been to the theatre yet, he said no. He was perspiring with nervousness, and was firmly convinced that his departure was the only thing which would really interest the young lady. But how could he get out of the place. Fortunately a third party stepped into the breach, a burly creature named Mahlmann, who spoke with a loud Mecklenburg accent, seemed to be a student of engineering and to be a lodged at Göppel's. He reminded Fräulein Agnes of a walk they had arranged to take. Diederich was invited to accompany then. In dismay he pleaded the excuse of an acquaintance who was waiting for him outside and went off at once. "Thank God," he thought, "she has some one," but the thought hurt him.
Herr Göppel opened the door for him in the dark hall and asked if his friend was also new to Berlin. Diederich lied, saying his friend was from Berlin. "For if neither of you know the city you will take the wrong bus. No doubt you have often lost yourself already in Berlin." When Diederich admitted it, Herr Göppel seemed satisfied. "Here it is not like in Netzig; you can walk about for half a day. Just fancy when you come from Tieckstrasse here to the Halle Gate you have walked as far as three times through the whole of Netzig. … Well now, next Sunday you must come to lunch."
Diederich promised to go. When the time came he would have preferred not to, he went only out of fear of his father. This time he had to undergo a tête-à-tête with the young lady. Diederich behaved as if absorbed in his own affairs and under no obligation to entertain her. She began again to speak about the theatre, but he interrupted her gruffly, saying he had no time for such things. Oh yes, her father had told her that Herr Hessling was studying chemistry.
"Yes. As a matter of fact that is the only science which can justify its existence," Diederich asserted, without exactly knowing what put that idea into his head.
Fräulein Göppel let her bag fall, but he stooped so reluctantly that she had picked it up before he could get to it. In spite of that, she thanked him softly and almost shyly. Diederich was annoyed. "These coquettish women are horrible," he reflected. She was looking for something in her bag.
"Now I have lost it—I mean my sticking-plaster. It is bleeding again."
She unwound her handkerchief from her finger. It looked so much like snow that Diederich thought that the blood on it would sink in.
"I have some plaster," he said with a bow.
He seized her finger, and before she could wipe off the blood, he licked it.
"What on earth are you doing?"
He himself was startled, and wrinkling his brow solemnly he said: "Oh, as a chemist I have to do worse things than that."
She smiled. "Oh yes, of course, you are a sort of doctor. … How well you do it," she remarked as she watched him sticking on the plaster.
"There," he said, pushing her hand away and moving back. The air seemed to have become close and he thought: "If it were only possible to avoid touching her skin. It is so disgustingly soft." Agnes stared over his head. After a time she tried again: "Haven't we got common relations in Netzig?" She compelled him to go over a few families with her and they discovered a cousin.
"Your mother is still living, isn't she? You should be glad of that. Mine is long since dead. I don't suppose I shall live long either. One has premonitions"—and she smiled sadly and apologetically.
Silently Diederich resolved that this sentimentality was ridiculous. Another long interval, and as they both hastened to speak, the gentleman from Mecklenburg arrived. He squeezed Diederich's hand so hard that the latter winced, and at the same time he looked into his face with a smile of triumph. He drew a chair unconcernedly close to Agnes's knee, and with an air of proprietorship began talking animatedly about all sorts of things which concerned only the two of them. Diederich was left to himself and he discovered that Agnes was not so terrible, when he could contemplate her undisturbed. She wasn't really pretty; her aquiline nose was too small, and freckles were plainly visible on its narrow bridge. Her light brown eyes were too close together, and they blinked when she looked at any one. Her lips were too thin, as indeed her whole face was. "If she had not that mass of reddish brown hair over her forehead and that white complexion. …" He noted, too, with satisfaction that the nail of the finger which he had licked was not quite clean.
Herr Göppel came in with his three sisters, one of whom was accompanied by her husband and children. Her father and her aunts threw their arms round Agnes and kissed her fervently, but with solemn composure. The girl was taller and slimmer than any of them, and as they hung about her narrow shoulders she looked down on them with an air of distraction. The only kiss which she returned, slowly and seriously, was her father's. As Diederich watched this he could see in the bright sunlight the pale blue veins in her temples overshadowed by auburn hair.
It fell to him to take one of the aunts into the dining-room. The man from Mecklenburg had taken Agnes's arm. The silk Sunday dresses rustled round the family table, while the gentlemen took precautions not to crush the tails of their frock-coats. While the gentlemen rubbed their hands in anticipation and cleared their throats, the soup was brought in.
Diederich sat at some distance from Agnes, and he could not see her unless he bent forward—which he carefully refrained from doing. As his neighbour left him in peace, he ate vast quantities of roast veal and cauliflower. The food was the subject of detailed conversation and he was called upon to testify to its excellence. Agnes was warned not to eat the salad, she was advised to take a little red wine, and she was requested to state whether she had worn her goloshes that morning. Turning to Diederich Herr Göppel related how he and his sisters somehow or other had got separated in Friederichstrasse, and had not found one another until they were in the bus. "That's the sort of thing that would never happen in Netzig," he cried triumphantly to the whole table. Mahlmann and Agnes spoke of a concert to which they said they must go, and they were sure papa would let them. Herr Göppel mildly objected and the aunts supported him in chorus. Agnes should go to bed early and soon go for a change of air; she had overexerted