Page:German Classics of The 19h and 20th C. Vol.19.djvu/257

 THOMAS MANN

TONIO KRÖGER (1902)

I

HE winter sun, only a poor make-believe, hung milky pale behind cloud strata above the cramped city. Wet and draughty were the gable-fringed streets, and now and then there fell a sort of soft hail, not ice and not snow.

School was out. Over the paved yard and from out the barred portal streamed the throngs of the liberated. Big boys dignifiedly held their books tightly under their left armpits, while their right arms rowed them against the wind toward the noon meal; little fellows set off on a merry canter, so that the icy slush spattered, and the traps of Science rattled in their knapsacks of seal leather. But here and there all caps flew off, and a score of reverent eyes did homage to the hat of Odin and thebeard of Jove—on some senior teacher striding along with measured step &hellip;

"Is it you at last, Hans?" said Tonio Kröger, who had long been waiting on the drive; and with a smile he stepped up to his friend, who was just coming out of the gate in conversation with other comrades, and who was on the point of going off with them.

"What is it?" asked the latter, looking at Tonio;—"Oh yes, that's so; well, let's take a little walk, then."

Tonio was silent, and his eyes grew sad. Had Hans forgotten, not to think of it again until this minute, that