Page:German Classics of The 19h and 20th C. Vol.19.djvu/320

 had promised; and he did nothing but look forward to this with an anxious and sweet joy such as he had not experienced for many long, dead years. Once, by some chain of ideas, he had a fleeting recollection of a distant acquaintance, of Adalbert the novelist, who knew what he wanted and had gone to the cafe to escape the spring. And he shrugged his shoulders at him &hellip;

Dinner was served earlier than usual, and supper also was eaten earlier than otherwise and in the music-room, because preparations for the ball were already going on in the hall: in such a festive manner was everything brought into disorder. Then, after it had grown dark and Tonio Kröger was sitting in his room, there was noise and bustle again on the road and in the house. The picnickers were returning; yes, and from the direction of Elsinore new guests came by bicycle and carriage, and already one could hear in the room below a fiddle tuning up and a clarinet executing nasal runs by way of practice &hellip; Everything promised to make it a brilliant ball.

Now the little orchestra opened up with a march: the muffled sounds came up in steady rhythm: they were opening the dance with a polonaise. Tonio Kröger sat still awhile and listened. But when he heard the march-time change to a waltz, he got up and glided noiselessly out of his room.

From the corridor outside his room one could go by a stairway to the side-entrance of the hotel, and from there to the sun-porch without entering a room. He took this course, softly and stealthily, as if treading forbidden paths, and cautiously felt his way through the darkness, irresistibly attracted by this stupid, blissfully swaying music, whose tones were already reaching his ear clear and unmuffled.

The verandah was empty and unlighted, but the glass door to the hall, where the two great oil lamps were shining brightly before their polished reflectors, stood open. Thither he crept on tiptoe, and the enjoyment of stealthily