"The affair with the actress, clearly," replied George, and went on reading. "On the other hand he is inclined to make up for that by taking other troubles of mine too seriously. That is probably my fault and not his. He manifested a sympathy towards me for the loss I sustained by my father's death, which I confess made me positively ashamed; for though it hit me dreadfully hard we had grown so aloof from one another quite a long time before his madness burst upon him, that his death simply signified a further and more ghastly barrier rather than a new experience." "Well?" asked Anna, as George stopped. "I've just got an idea." "What is it?" "Nürnberger's sister lies buried in the Cadenabbia cemetery. I told you about her. I'll run over one of these days." Anna nodded. "Perhaps I'll go too, if I feel all right. From all I hear of him I find Nürnberger much more sympathetic than that horrible egoist your friend Heinrich." "You think so?" "But really, the way he writes about his father. It is almost intolerable." "Hang it all! if people who have grown so estranged as those two----" "All the same, I haven't really very much in common with my own parents temperamentally either, and yet.... If I.... No, no, I prefer not to talk about such things. Won't you go on reading?" George read: "There are more serious things than death, things which are certainly sadder, because these other things lack the finality which takes away the sadness of death, if viewed from the higher standpoint. For instance, there are living ghosts who walk about the streets in the clear daylight with eyes that have died long ago and yet see, ghosts who sit down next to one and talk with a human voice that has a far more distant ring than if it came from a grave. And one might go so far as to say that the essential awfulness of death is revealed to a far greater extent in moments when one has experiences like this, than at those times when one stands near and watches somebody being lowered into the earth ... however near that somebody was." George involuntarily dropped the letter and Anna said with emphasis: "Well, you can certainly keep him to yourself--your friend Heinrich." "Yes," replied George slowly. "He is often a bit affected, and yet ... hallo, there goes the first bell for lunch. Let's read quickly through to the end." "But I must now tell you what happened yesterday: the most painful and yet ridiculous affair which I have come across for a long time, and I am sorry to say the persons concerned are our good friends the Ehrenbergs, father and son." "Oh," cried Anna involuntarily. George had quickly run through the lines which followed and shook his head. "What is it?" inquired Anna. "It is.... Just listen," and he went on reading.