"I'm crazy about lilac," said the last of the romantics. "Homesickness for me means lilac.
In the spring of twenty-four I set off hell-for-leather from Rio de Janeiro, only because I remembered the lilac must be in flower here.
When I arrived, of course, it was too late."He laughed. "It's always so."
"Rio de Janeiro." Pat drew a spray of blossom down toward her. "Were you there together?"
Gottfried jibbed.
I felt a sudden cold shiver down my spine.
"Just look at the moon," said I swiftly, at the same time treading imploringly on Lenz's foot.
In the glow of his cigarette I saw a faint smile and a twinkle.
I was saved.
"No, we weren't together. I was alone that time.
But what do you say to a last swig of this woodruff mixture?"
"No more." Pat shook her head. "I can't drink a lot of wine."
We heard Ferdinand calling to us and went across. But I resolved sometime to clear up the matter of Brazil. Gottfried was right—love does spoil character.
Ferdinand was standing massive in the doorway.
"Come inside, children," said he. "People like us have no business with nature at nighttime.
She wants to be alone then.
A farmer or a fisherman, that's a different matter—but not us town-dwellers with our instincts sabred off." He laid a hand on Gottfried's shoulder. "Night is nature's protest against the leprosy of civilization, Gottfried.
No decent man can withstand it for long.
He begins to notice that he has been turned out of the silent company of the trees, the animals, the stars, and unconscious life." He smiled his queer smile; one could never be sure if it were sad or not. "Come inside, children.
Let's warm our hands over memories.
Ach, the wonderful time, when we were horsetails and mudfish—fifty, sixty thousand years ago—God, but how low we have fallen since then."
He took Pat by the hand.
"If we had not just this tiny sense of beauty—then all were lost." With a delicate movement of his enormous flippers he placed her hand on his arm. "Silver shooting-star above the giddy abyss—will you have a drink with an age-old man?"
Pat nodded. "Yes," said she. "Anything you like."
The two went in.
Walking thus side by side it looked as if Pat were Ferdinand's daughter—the slim, bold and young daughter of a weary giant left over from prehistoric time.
About eleven we drove back.
Valentin and Ferdinand had the taxi, Valentin at the wheel.
The rest of us went in Karl.
The night was warm and Koster made a detour through several villages that lay asleep by the roadside, with no sign of life but a few lights and a dog barking.
Lenz was sitting in front with Otto,"singing; Pat and I crouched low behind.
Koster drove wonderfully.
He took the curves like a bird; it looked child's play it was so sure.
He was not a hard driver like so many racers.
You might have slept round hairpin bends, he held the car so steady; one was never conscious of the speed.
We listened to the changing sound of the tyres as the road surface altered.
On tarred roads they whistled, over stone thundered hollow.
The searchlights coursed ahead like elongated greyhounds and there started up out of the darkness now a trembling avenue of birches, a row of poplars, fleeting telegraph poles, squatting houses and the mute parade of the forest's edge.
Immense above us, with its millions of stars, trailed the bright mist of the Milky Way.
The speed increased.
I put our coats over Pat.
She smiled at me.
"Do you love me really?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"Do you me?" "No.
Lucky, isn't-it?"
"Very."
"Then nothing can happen to us, eh?"
"Nothing," she replied and felt for my hand under the coats.
The road ran in a big sweep beside the railway line.