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grown into him, as he into it, his uniform would still have been the symbol for many things; in the course of years he had fattened and rounded it with so many ideas that, securely enclosed in it, he could no longer live without it; enclosed and cut off from the world and the house of his father in such security and peace that he could scarce distinguish, scarce notice, that his uniform left him only a thin strip of personal and human freedom no broader than the narrow strip of starched cuff which was all that an officer was allowed to show. He did not like to put on mufti, and he was glad that his uniform protected him from visits to questionable resorts, where he pictured the civilian Bertrand in the company of loose women. For often he was overcome with the uncanny fear that he too might slip into the same inexplicable rut as Bertrand. And that also was why he bore a grudge against his father for his having to accompany him, and in mufti at that, on the obligatory round of the Berlin night haunts with which ended, in accordance with tradition, the old man’s visits to the capital of the Empire.
    When next day Joachim escorted his father to the train the latter said: “Well, as soon as you’re a captain, and that won’t be long now, we’ll have to think of finding a wife for you. How about Elisabeth? The Baddensens have a nice little property over there at Lestow, and it will all go to the girl some day.” Joachim said nothing. Yesterday he almost bought me a girl for fifty marks, he thought, and to-day he is trying to arrange a legitimate engagement. Or had the old man himself some hankerings after Elisabeth, as after the other girl, whose fingers Joachim could still feel on the back of his neck? But it was incredible to him that anyone at all should dare to think of Elisabeth with sensual desire, and still more incredible that any man should want to incite his son to violate a saint because he was unable to do it himself. Joachim almost felt like asking his father’s pardon for the monstrous suspicion; butreally the old man was capable of anything. Yes, it was one’s duty to protect all the women in the world from this old man, Joachim thought as they were walking along the platform, and while he saluted the departing train he was still thinking it. But when the train had disappeared his thoughts returned to Ruzena.
    And in the evening he was still thinking of Ruzena. There are evenings in spring when the twilight lasts far longer than the astronomically prescribed period. Then a thin smoky mist sinks over the city and gives it the subdued suspense of evenings preceding a holiday. And at the same time it is as if this subdued, pale grey mist had netted so much light that brighter strands remain in it even when it has become quite black and velvety. So these twilights last very long, so long that the proprietors of shops forget to close them; they stand gossiping with their acquaintances before the doors, until a passing policeman smilingly draws their attention to the fact that they are exceeding the regulation closing-time. And even then a beam of light shines from many a shop, for in the back room the family are sitting at their supper; they have not put up the shutters as usual in front of the door, but only placed a chair there to show that customers cannot be served; and when they have finished their supper they will come out, bringing their chairs with them, and take their ease before the shop-door. They are enviable, the small shopkeepers and tradespeople who live behind their shops, enviable in winter when they put up the heavy shutters so as to enjoy doubly the warmth and security of the lighted room, through whose glass door at Christmastime the glittering Christmas-tree can be seen from the shop; enviable in the mild spring and autumn evenings when, holding a cat, or stroking the soft head of a dog, they sit before their doors as on a terraced garden.
    Returning from the barracks Joachim walked through