Bertha looked out through the open carriage window upon the landscape: Frau Rupius read a book, which she had taken out of her little traveling-bag very soon after the train had started. It almost appeared as though she wished to avoid any lengthy conversation with Bertha, and the latter felt somewhat hurt. For a long time past she had been cherishing a wish to be a friend of Frau Rupius, but since the previous day this desire of hers had become almost a yearning, which recalled to her mind the whole-hearted devotion of the friendships of the days of her childhood. At first, therefore, she had felt quite unhappy, and had a sensation of having been abandoned, but soon the changing panorama to be seen through the window began to distract her thoughts in an agreeable manner. As she looked at the rails which seemed to run to meet her, at the hedges and telegraph poles which glided and leaped past her, she recalled to mind the few short journeys to the Salzkammergut, where she had been taken, when a child, by her parents, and the indescribable pleasure of having been allowed to occupy a corner seat on those occasions. Then she looked into the distance and exulted in the gleaming of the river, in the pleasant windings of the hills and meadows, in the azure of the sky and in the white clouds. After a time Anna laid down the book, and began to chat to Bertha and smiled at her, as though at a child. "Who would have foretold this of us?" said Frau Rupius. "That we should be going to Vienna together?" "No, no, I mean that we shall both--how shall I express it?--pass or end our lives yonder"--she gave a slight nod in the direction of the place from which they came. "Very true, indeed!" answered Bertha, who had not yet considered whether there was anything really strange in the fact or not. "Well, you, of course, knew it the moment you were married, but I--" Frau Rupius gazed straight before her. "So then your move to the little town," said Bertha, "did not take place until--until--" She broke off in confusion. "Yes, you know that, of course." In saying this Frau Rupius looked Bertha full in the face as if reproaching her for her question. But when she continued to speak she smiled gently, as though her thoughts were not occupied by anything so sad. "Yes, I never imagined that I should leave Vienna; my husband had his position as a government official, and indeed he would certainly have been able to remain longer there, in spite of his infirmity, had he not wanted to go away at once." "He thought, perhaps, that the fresh air, the quiet--" began Bertha, and she at once perceived that she was not saying anything very sensible. Nevertheless Anna answered her quite affably. "Oh, no, neither rest nor climate could do him any good, but he thought that it would be better for both of us in every way. He was right, too--what should we have been able to do if we had remained in the city?"