When Lilly started out of a state of wakeful torpor a grey day was peering in through the window. She saw a foaming torrent tumbling into depths below, and beyond gigantic green masses towering into the heavens. It was a picture she had seen only in her dreams, convincing in its greatness, dwarfing all else with its might.
What she had experienced before falling asleep was now a grotesque dream and had lost its vital essence.
She looked about the compartment cautiously.
The stranger was lying stretched out in repulsive sleep. His cheeks swelled and sank as he puffed heavily. He looked sallow and effeminate, and disgusted her.
She turned more to the side and suddenly saw her husband's wide-open eyes resting upon her with a rigid, chastising look. She started as if caught in guilt.
"Are you awake already?" she asked with a constrained smile.
"I didn't sleep a wink all night," he replied.
Something in the tone of his voice set her a-tremble. It was both a rebuke and a sentence.
They rode on without speaking. Lilly utterly disregarded the stranger.
At the hotel in Bozen the colonel entered Lilly's room and said:
"My dear child, I have something to say to you. I am tired of the annoyances to which we are subjected day after day. To what extent your appearance and conduct are to blame, or to what extent my age is the cause, I will not discuss. However that may be, I do not reproach you with gross infringement of the laws of duty or good taste. And I may not demand a _grande dame's_ matter-of-course reserve of one who two or three weeks ago was serving behind a counter. To teach you propriety requires time, and it is a matter that I may leave entirely without qualms of any sort to Miss von Schwertfeger. We will take the noon train back to Germany and we will reach Lischnitz day after to-morrow in the evening, perhaps earlier in the day."
Lilly did not even grieve, she felt so humiliated and bruised.
And the land of her dreams sank below the horizon.
They reached Lischnitz late Saturday night. Since the colonel had prohibited a formal reception, all Lilly could see of the castle and outbuildings were black shadowy masses, which the veiled moon painted light on the edges.
A couple of servant maids stood on the steps holding lanterns, and a very slim lady with a wasp-like waist and a halo of red hair streaked with white put a pair of long, extremely thin arms about Lilly's neck, and in a melancholy, cracked voice spoke motherly words of welcome, which, though intended to bring about a speedy friendship between them, intimidated Lilly and inspired her with dread.