She called to mind the day on which she had been married, and she had a vision of her late husband and herself standing side by side before the priest--but the event seemed to be so infinitely far away in the past, and it affected her spirit as little as if her thoughts were occupied by strangers. But suddenly, as a picture changed in a magic lantern, she seemed to see Emil, instead of her husband, standing by her side, and the picture appeared to stand out so completely, without any co-operation on the part of her will, that she almost had to regard as a premonition, even as a prediction from Heaven itself. Mechanically, she folded her hands and said softly: "So be it." And, as though her will acquired thereby a further access of strength, she remained sitting in a pew a while longer and sought to hold the picture fast. After a few minutes she went out again into the street, where the broad daylight and the din of the traffic affected her as something new, something which she had not experienced for a long time, as though she had spent whole hours in the church. She felt tranquil, and hopes seemed to hover about her. She dined in the restaurant of a fashionable hotel in the Kaernthernstrasse.... She was not in the least embarrassed, and thought it very childish that she had not preferred to put up at a first-class hotel. On reaching her room again, she undressed and, such was the state of languor into which she had fallen as the result of the unusually rich meal and the wine she had taken, that she had to stretch herself out on the sofa and fall asleep. It was five o'clock before she awoke. She had no great desire to get up. Usually at that time ... what would she probably have been doing at that moment if she had not come to Vienna? If he had not answered her letter--if she had not written to him? If he had not received that Order? If she had never seen his portrait in the illustrated paper? If nothing had called his existence back into her memory? If he had become an insignificant, unknown fiddler in some suburban orchestra? What strange thoughts were these! Did she, then, love him merely because he was celebrated? What did it all mean? Did she, indeed, take any interest in his violin playing? ... Wouldn't he be dearer to her if he was not famous and admired? Certainly in that case she would have felt herself much nearer to him, much more allied to him; in that case, she would not have had this feeling of uncertainty about him, and also he would have been different in his manner towards her. As it was, of course, he was, indeed, very charming, and yet ... she realized it now ... something had come between them that day and had sundered them. Yes, and that was nothing else than the fact that he was a man whom the whole world knew, and she was nothing but a stupid little woman from the country. Suddenly she pictured him to herself as he had stood in the Rembrandt gallery at the Museum, and had looked out of the