I took him to the lavatory and then sat down in the outer room to wait for him.
The sweet smell of the candles mingled with the crackle and the smell of burning pine needles.
And suddenly it was as if I heard the light, loved footstep, felt the warm breath, and saw before me two eyes . . .
"Damn," said I and stood up. "What's the matter with me?"
At the same moment I heard a mighty roar.
"Potter!
Bravo Aloysius!"
Cremation had won.
In the back room cigars were smoking and the cognac was passed around.
I continued to sit by the bar.
The girls came in whispering eagerly.
"What are you up to?" I asked.
"We get our presents now," replied Marian.
"Ach, so."
I leaned my head against the bar and tried to think what Pat would be doing now.
I pictured the hall of the sanatorium, the open fire and Pat at a table by the window with Helga Guttmann and some other people I didn't know.
It was all so dreadfully far away. . . . Sometimes I used to think that one day I should wake up, and all that had been would be over, forgotten, sunk, drowned.
Nothing was sure—not even memory.
A bell rang.
The girls ran across to the billiard room like a flock of hens at feeding-time.
There stood Rosa with the bell.
She beckoned me to come too.
On the billiard table under a little Christmas tree stood an array of plates covered with tissue paper.
On each lay a slip of paper with the name, and under it the parcels with the presents that the girls were giving one another.
Rosa had arranged it all.
Each girl had had to give her presents for the others, wrapped up, to Rosa, and she had distributed them over the several plates.
The girls in their excitement tumbled over one another, like children in their haste to see as quickly as possible what they had got.
"Won't you look at your plate?" asked Rosa.
"What plate?" :
"Yours.
There are presents for you too."
Sure enough, there stood my name in two colours, red and black, and capitals even.
Apples, nuts, oranges—a pullover from Rosa, knitted herself, a grey-green tie from the hostess, a pair of real artificial silk pink socks from Kiki, a leather belt from Wally the beautiful, a half-bottle of rum from Alois the waiter, half a dozen handkerchiefs from Marian, Lina, and Mimi together, and from the host two bottles of cognac.
"Boys," said I, "boys, but this is most unexpected."
"A surprise, eh?" cried Rosa.
"Absolutely."
I stood there confounded, and, damn it, was touched to the marrow.
"Lads," said I, "do you know when I last got a Christmas present?
I don't even remember.
It must have been before the war.
But now I have nothing at all for you!"
There was an immense outburst of delight that I had been so completely outwitted.
"Because you've always played something for us," said Lina, blushing.
"Yes, play something for us, that's your present," declared Rosa.
"Anything you like," said I. "Everything you like."
"Something out of childhood," called Marian.
"No, something cheerful," opposed Kiki.
He was overruled.
He never quite counted as a man in any case.
I sat down to the piano and began.