At that moment a cough disturbed him. How hollow it sounded--as if everything inside were loose. The young fellow who was standing behind his broad back might have been coughing like that for some time--only he had not noticed it; now he felt disgusted at his spitting. He stepped aside involuntarily: faugh, how the man coughed! "Oh, how wretched it is that there isn't a cab to be had!" Wolfgang now heard the older man say, on whose arm the young fellow who was coughing was leaning. "Are you quite knocked up? Can you still stand it?" There was such an anxiety expressed in that: "Can you still stand it?" "Oh, pretty well," the young fellow answered in a hoarse voice. Wolfgang pricked up his ears: he surely knew that voice? And now he also recognised the face. Wasn't that Kullrich? Good gracious, how he had changed. He raised his hat involuntarily: "Good evening, Kullrich." And now the latter also recognised him. "Schlieben!" Kullrich smiled, so that all his teeth, which were long and white, could be seen behind his bloodless lips. And then he held out his hand to his former schoolfellow: "You aren't at school either? I've left as well. It's a long time since we've seen each other." The hand Wolfgang held had a disagreeable, moist, cold feeling, and a shudder passed through him. He had forgotten long ago that he had once heard that Kullrich had consumption; all at once he remembered it again. But that was quite impossible, surely you could not die so young? Everything in him strove against the conviction. "Have you been ill?" he asked quickly. "But now you're all right again, aren't you?" It was quite difficult for him to remember that he was speaking to his old schoolfellow; this Kullrich was quite a stranger to him. "Oh yes, pretty fair," said Kullrich, smiling once more. Quite a peculiar smile, which even struck the careless youth. Kullrich had never been nice-looking, he had a lump at the end of his nose; but now Wolfgang could not take his eyes off him. How much more refined his face had grown and so--he could not contain himself any longer, all at once he blurted it out: "How different you look now. I hardly recognised you." "My son is soon going away," his father said quickly, drawing his son's arm more closely through his own as he spoke. "Then I hope he will come back quite well. But he has tried to do too much to-day. The weather was so fine--plenty of fresh air and the smell of the pines, the doctor said--but we have remained out too long. It won't do you any harm, I trust?" There was again such a terrible anxiety expressed in his voice. "Are you cold? Would you not like to sit down until we can start?" The father put a camp-stool, which he had carried under his arm, on the ground, and opened it: "Sit down a little, Fritz."