Fred brought the bottle.
"Should I put on the gramophone a bit?" he asked.
"No," said Lenz, "chuck your gramophone out the window and bring some bigger glasses.
Then turn out half the lights, put a few bottles on the table and shove off into your office next door."
Fred nodded and turned out the top lights.
Only the little side lamps with the parchment shades from old maps were left burning.
Lenz filled the glasses.
"Pros't, boys!
Because we're alive.
Because we breathe.
Because we're so conscious of life that we don't know which end to begin."
"That's just it," said Ferdinand. "Only the unhappy man appreciates happiness.
The happy man is a mannequin for the life-feeling. He displays it merely; he doesn't possess it.
Light doesn't shine in the light; it shines in the dark.
A health to the dark.
The man who has once been in the storm can't handle delicate electric apparatus any more.
To hell with the storm.
Blessed be our bit of life.
And because we do love it we're not prepared to invest it in five per cents; we prefer to burn it.
Drink, my boys.
There are stars still shining that blew up ten thousand light-years ago.
Drink while there is yet time.
Long live unhappiness.
Long live the dark."
He poured himself a tumbler of cognac and drank it up.
The rum was knocking in my head.
I got up softly and went over to Fred in the office.
He was asleep.
I waked him and put through a long-distance call to the sanatorium.
"You may as well wait," said he. "It's pretty quick this time of night."
Five minutes later the telephone rang and the sanatorium answered.
"I want to speak to Fraulein Hollmann."
The nurse came to the phone.
"Fraulein Hollmann is asleep already."
"Hasn't she a telephone in her room?"
"No."
"Can't you wake her?"
The voice hesitated.
"No.
Besides she is not to get up to-day."
"Has something happened?"
"No.
She only has to stay in bed for the next few days."
"You're sure nothing's happened?"
"No, no, it's the usual thing at the start.
She has to stay in bed and get used to the place."
I hung up the receiver.
"Too late, eh?" asked Fred.
"How do you mean?" said I.
He showed me his watch.