Three men were playing cards in a corner. The waiter who had been watching them helped Fridolin take off his fur coat, took his order and placed illustrated journals and evening papers on his table. Fridolin felt slightly more secure and began to look through the papers. His eyes were arrested here and there by some news-item. In some Bohemian city, street signs with German names had been torn down. There was a conference in Constantinople in which Lord Cranford took part about constructing a railway in Asia Minor. The firm Benies & Weingruber had gone into bankruptcy. The prostitute Anna Tiger, in a fit of jealousy, had attempted to throw vitriol on her friend, Hermine Drobizky. An Ash Wednesday fish-dinner was being given that evening in Sophia Hall. Marie B., a young girl residing at No. 28 Schonbrunn Strasse, had poisoned herself with mercuric chloride.—Prosaically commonplace as they were, all these facts, the insignificant as well as the sad, had a sobering and reassuring effect on Fridolin. He felt sorry for the young girl, Marie B. How stupid to take mercuric chloride! At this very moment, while he was sitting snugly in the cafe, while Albertina was calmly sleeping, and the Councilor had passed beyond all human suffering, Marie B., No. 28 Schonbrunn Strasse, was writhing in incredible pain.
He looked up from his paper and encountered the gaze of a man seated opposite. Was it possible? Nachtigall—? The latter had already recognized him, threw up his hands in pleased surprise and joined him at his table. He was still a young man, tall, rather broad, and none too thin. His long, blond, slightly curly hair had a touch of gray in it, and his moustache drooped in Polish fashion. He was wearing an open gray top-coat, underneath which were visible a greasy dress-suit, a crumpled shirt with three false diamond studs, a crinkled collar and a dangling, white silk tie. His eyelids were inflamed, as if from many sleepless nights, but his blue eyes gleamed brightly.
"You here in Vienna, Nachtigall?" exclaimed Fridolin.
"Didn't you know?" said Nachtigall with a soft, Polish accent and a slightly Jewish twang. "How could you miss it, and me so famous?" He laughed loudly and good-naturedly, and sat down opposite Fridolin.
"What," asked Fridolin, "have you been appointed Professor of Surgery without my hearing of it?"
Nachtigall laughed still louder. "Didn't you hear me just now, just a minute ago?"
"What do you mean—hear you?—Why, of course." Suddenly it occurred to him that someone had been playing the piano when he entered; in fact, he had heard music coming from some basement as he approached the cafe. "So that was you playing?" he exclaimed.
"It was," Nachtigall said, laughing.
Fridolin nodded. Why, of course—the strangely vigorous touch, the peculiar, but euphonious bass chords had at once seemed familiar to him. "Are you devoting yourself entirely to it?" he asked. He remembered that Nachtigall had definitely given up the study of medicine after his second preliminary examination in zoology, which he had passed although he was seven years late in taking it. Since then he had been hanging around the hospital, the dissecting room, the laboratories and classrooms for some time afterwards. With his blond artist's head, his crinkled collar, his dangling tie that had once been white, he had been a striking and, in the humorous sense, popular figure. He had been much liked, not only by his fellow-students, but also by many professors. The son of a Jewish gin-shop owner in a small Polish town, he had left home early and had come to Vienna to study medicine. The trifling sums he received from his parents had from the very-beginning been scarcely worth mention and were soon discontinued. However, this didn't prevent his appearing in the Riedhof Hotel at the table reserved for medical students where Fridolin was a regular guest. At intervals, one after another of his more well-to-do fellow-students would pay his bill. He sometimes, also, was given clothes, which he accepted gladly and without false pride. He had already learned to play in his home town from a pianist stranded there, and while he was a medical student in Vienna he had studied at the Conservatory where he was considered a talented musician of great promise. But here, too, he was neither serious nor diligent enough to develop his art systematically. He soon became entirely content with the impression he made on his acquaintances, or rather with the pleasure he gave them by his playing. For a while he had a position as pianist in a suburban dancing-school.
Fellow-students and table-companions tried to introduce him into fashionable houses in the same capacity, but on such occasions he would play only what suited him and as long as he chose. His conversations with the young girls present were not always harmless, and he drank more than he could carry. Once, playing for a dance in the house of a wealthy banker, he embarrassed several couples with flattering but improper remarks, and ended up by playing a wild cancan and singing a risque song with his powerful, bass voice. The host gave him a severe calling down, but Nachtigall, blissfully hilarious, got up and embraced him. The latter was furious and, although himself a Jew, hurled a common insult at him. Nachtigall at once retaliated with a powerful box on his ears, and this definitely concluded his career in the fashionable houses of the city. He behaved better, on the whole, in more intimate circles, although sometimes when the hour was late, he had to be put out of the place by force. But the following morning all was forgiven and forgotten. One day, long after his friends had graduated, he disappeared from the city without a word. For a few months he sent post cards from various Russian and Polish cities, and once Fridolin, who was one of Nachtigall's favorites, was reminded of his existence not only by a card, but by a request for a moderate sum of money, without explanation. Fridolin sent it at once, but never received a word of thanks or any other sign of life from Nachtigall.
At this moment, however, eight years later, at a quarter to one in the morning, Nachtigall insisted on paying his debt, and took the exact amount in bank-notes from a rather shabby pocket-book. As the latter was fairly well filled, Fridolin accepted the repayment with a good conscience.
"Are you getting along well," he asked with a smile, in order to make sure.
"I can't complain," replied Nachtigall. Placing his hand on Fridolin's arm, he continued: "But tell me, why are you here so late at night?"
Fridolin explained that he had needed a cup of coffee after visiting a patient, although he didn't say, without quite knowing why, that he hadn't found his patient alive. Then he talked in very general terms of his duties at the hospital and his private practice, and mentioned that he was happily married, and the father of a six-year old girl.
Nachtigall in his turn, explained that he had spent the time as a pianist in every possible sort of Polish, Roumanian, Serbian and Bulgarian city and town, just as Fridolin had surmised. He had a wife and four children living in Lemberg, and he laughed heartily, as though it were unusually jolly to have four children, all of them living in Lemberg, and all by one and the same woman. He had been back in Vienna since the preceding fall. The vaudeville company he had been with had suddenly gone to pieces. He was now playing anywhere and everywhere, anything that happened to come along, sometimes in two or three different houses the same night. For example, down there in that basement—not at all a fashionable place, as he remarked, really a sort of bowling alley, and with very doubtful patrons... "But if you have to provide for four children and a wife in Lemberg"—he laughed again, though not quite as gaily as before, and added: "But sometimes I am privately engaged." Noticing a reminiscent smile on Fridolin's face, he continued: "Not just in the houses of bankers and such, but in all kinds of circles, even larger ones, both public and secret."
"Secret?" Fridolin asked.
Nachtigall looked straight before him with a gloomy and crafty air, and said: "They will be calling for me again in a minute."
"What, are you playing somewhere else tonight?"
"Yes, they only begin there at two."
"It must be an unusually smart place."
"Yes and no," said Nachtigall, laughing, but he became serious again at once.
"Yes and no?" queried Fridolin, curiously.
Nachtigall bent across the table.
> "I'm playing tonight in a private house, but I don't know whose it is."
"Then you're playing there for the first time?" Fridolin asked with increasing interest.
"No, it's the third time, but it will probably be a different house again."
"I don't understand."
"Neither do I," said Nachtigall, laughing, "but you'd better not ask any more."
"Oh, I see," remarked Fridolin.
"No, you're wrong. It's not what you think. I've seen a great deal in my time. It's unbelievable what one sees in such small towns, especially in Roumania, but here . . ." He drew back the yellow curtain from the window, looked out on the street and said as if to himself: "Not here yet." Then he turned to Fridolin and explained: "I mean the carriage. There's always a carriage to call for me, a different one each time."
"You're making me very curious, Nachtigall," Fridolin assured him.
"Listen to me," said Nachtigall after a slight pause. "I'd like to be able to arrange it—'but how can I do it—" Suddenly he burst out: "Have you got plenty of nerve?"
"That's a strange question," said Fridolin in the tone of an offended fraternity student.
"I don't mean that."
"Well, what do you mean?—Why does one need so much courage for this affair? What can possibly happen?" He gave a short and contemptuous laugh.
"Nothing can happen to me. At best this would be the last time—but perhaps that may be the case anyhow." He stopped and looked out again through the crevice in the curtain.
"Well, then where's the difficulty?"
"What did you say?" asked Nachtigall, as if coming out of a dream.
"Tell me the rest of the story, now that you've started. A secret party? Closed affair? Nothing but invited guests?"
"I don't know. The last time there were thirty people, and the first time only sixteen."
"A ball?"
"Of course, a ball." He seemed to be sorry he had spoken of the matter at all.
"And you're furnishing the music for the occasion?"
"What do you mean—for the occasion? I don't know for what occasion. I simply play—with bandaged eyes."
"Nachtigall, what do you mean?"
Nachtigall sighed a little and continued: "Unfortunately my eyes are not completely bandaged, so that I can occasionally see something. I can see through the black silk handkerchief over my eyes in the mirror opposite..." And he stopped.
"In other words," said Fridolin impatiently and contemptuously, but feeling strangely excited, "naked females."
"Don't say females," replied Nachtigall in an offended tone, "you never saw such women."
Fridolin hemmed and hawed a little. "And what's the price of admission?" he asked casually.
"Do you mean tickets and such? There are none."
"Well, how does one gain admittance?" asked Fridolin with compressed lips and tapping on the table with his fingers.
"You have to know the password, and it's a new one each time."
"And what's the one for tonight?"
"I don't know yet. I'll only find out from the coachman."
"Take me along, Nachtigall."
"Impossible. It's too dangerous."
"But a minute ago you yourself spoke ... of being willing to ... I think you can manage all right."
Nachtigall looked at him critically and said: "It would be absolutely impossible in your street clothes, for everyone is masked, men and women. As you haven't a masquerade outfit with you, it's out of the question. Perhaps the next time. I'll try to figure out some way." He listened attentively, peered again through the opening in the curtain and said with a sigh of relief: "There's my carriage, good-bye."
Fridolin hung on to his arm and said: "You can't get away that way. You've got to take me along."
"But my dear man . . ."
"Leave it to me. I know that it's dangerous. Perhaps that's the very thing that tempts me."
"But I've already told you—without costume and mask———"
"There are places to rent costumes."
"At one o'clock in the morning?"
"Listen here, Nachtigall. There's just such a place at the corner of Wickenburg Strasse. I walk past it several times a day." And he added, with growing excitement:
"You stay here for another quarter of an hour, Nachtigall. In the meantime I'll see what luck I have. The proprietor of the costume shop probably lives in the same building. If he doesn't—well, then I'll simply give it up for tonight. Let fate decide the question. There's a cafe in the same building. I think it's called Cafe Vindobona. You tell the coachman that you've forgotten something in the cafe, walk in, and I'll be waiting near the door. Then you can give me the password and get back into your carriage. If I manage to get a costume I'll take a cab and immediately follow you. The rest will take care of itself. I give you my word of honor, Nachtigall, that if you run any risk, I'll assume complete responsibility."
Nachtigall had tried several times to interrupt Fridolin, but it was useless——
The former threw some money on the table to pay his bill, including a generous tip which seemed appropriate for the style of the night, and left. A closed carriage was standing outside. A coachman dressed entirely in black with a tall silk hat, sat on the box, motionless. It looks like a mourning-coach, Fridolin thought. He ran down the street and reached the corner-house he was looking for a few minutes later. He rang the bell, inquired from the care-taker whether the costumer Gibiser lived in the house, and hoped in the bottom of his heart that he would receive a negative answer. But Gibiser actually lived there, on the floor below that of the costume shop. The care-taker did not seem especially surprised at having such a late caller. Made affable by Fridolin's liberal tip, he stated that it was not unusual during the carnival for people to come at such a late hour to hire costumes. He lighted the way from below with a candle until Fridolin had rung the bell on the second floor. Herr Gibiser himself opened the door for him, as if he had been waiting there. He was a bald-headed, haggard man and wore an old-fashioned, flowered dressing-gown and a tasselled, Turkish cap which made him look like a foolish old man on the stage. Fridolin asked for a costume and said that the price did not matter, whereupon Herr Gibiser remarked, almost disdainfully: "I ask a fair price, no more."
He led the way up a winding staircase into the store. There was an odor of silk, velvet, perfume, dust and withered flowers, and a glitter of silver and red out of the indistinct darkness. A number of little electric bulbs suddenly shone between the open cabinets of a long, narrow passage, the end of which was enveloped in darkness. There were all kinds of costumes hanging to the right and to the left. On one side knights, squires, peasants, hunters, scholars, Orientals and clowns; on the other, ladies-at-court, baronesses, peasant women, lady's maids, queens of the night. The corresponding head-dresses were on a shelf above the costumes. Fridolin felt as though he were walking through a gallery of hanged people who were on the point of asking each other to dance. Herr Gibiser followed him. Finally he asked: "Is there anything special you want? Louis Quatorze, Directoire, or Old-German?"
"I need a dark cassock and a black mask, that's all."
At this moment the clink of glasses rang out from the end of the passage. Fridolin was startled and looked at the costumer, as though he felt an explanation were due. Gibiser, however, merely groped for a switch which was concealed somewhere. A blinding light was diffused over the entire passage down to the end where a little table, covered with plates, glasses and bottles, could be seen. Two men, dressed in the red robes of vehmic judges, sprang up from two chairs beside the table and a graceful little girl disappeared at the same moment. Gibiser rushed forward with long strides, reached across the table and grabbed a white wig in his hand. Simultaneously a young and charming girl, still almost a child, wearing a Pierrette costume, wriggled out from under the table and ran along the passage to Fridolin who caught her in his arms. Gibiser dropped the white wig and grabbed the two vehmic judges by their robes. At the same time
he called out to Fridolin: "Hold on to that girl for me." The child pressed against Fridolin as though sure of protection. Her little oval face was covered with powder and several beauty spots, and a fragrance of roses and powder arose from her delicate breasts. There was a smile of impish desire in her eyes.
"Gentlemen," cried Gibiser, "you will stay here while I call the police."
"What's got into you?" they exclaimed, and continued as if with one voice: "We were invited by the young lady."
Gibiser released his hold and Fridolin heard him saying: "You will have to explain this. Couldn't you see that the girl was deranged? Then turning to Fridolin, he said: "Sorry to keep you waiting."
"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Fridolin.
He would have liked to stay, or, better still, to take the girl with him, no matter where —and whatever the consequences. She looked up at him with alluring and child-like eyes, as if spellbound. The men at the end of the passage were arguing excitedly. Gibiser turned to Fridolin and asked in a matter-of-fact way: "You wanted a cassock, a pilgrim's hat and a mask?"
"No," said Pierrette with gleaming eyes, "you must give this gentleman a cloak lined with ermine and a doublet of red silk."
"Don't you budge from my side," answered Gibiser. Then he pointed to a dark frock hanging between a medieval soldier and a Venetian Senator, and said: "That's about your size and here's the hat. Take it quick."
The two strange men protested again: "You'll have to let us out at once, Herr Chibisier." Fridolin noticed with surprise the French pronunciation of the name Gibiser.
"That's out of the question," replied the costumer scornfully. "You'll kindly wait here until I return."
Meanwhile Fridolin slipped into the cassock and tied the white cords. Gibiser, who was standing on a narrow ladder, handed him the black, broad-rimmed pilgrim's hat, and he put it on. But he did all this unwillingly, being more and more convinced that danger was threatening Pierrette and that it was his duty to remain and help her. The mask which Gibiser gave him and which he at once tried on, smelt strange and rather disagreeable.