“Not until you assure me that I shall be the bearer of good news. Your decision is a grave one. Clouds are gathering and awaiting a wind that may disperse them. Processions are on the roads praying to avert an evil fate. I am but a single, but a chance messenger. May I rise now?” Eva folded her arms across her bosom, and retreated to the very wall of hanging flowers. She became aware of the mighty and naked seriousness of fate. “Rise,” she said, with lowered head, and twice did fire and pallor alternate on her cheeks. Szilaghin arose and smiled, swiftly breathing. Again, in silent reverence, he carried her hand to his lips. Then he led her, subtly chatting as before, back among the other guests. It was twelve hours after this that Christian received the telegram which called him to Berlin. X Edgar Lorm played to crowded houses in Munich. His popularity was such that he had to prolong his stay. It pleased Crammon enormously and puffed him up. He walked about as though he were the sole nurse of all this glory. One day he was at a tea given by a literary lady. In a corner arose laughter that was obviously directed at him. He was amused when he discovered that the whispering group gathered there believed firmly that he was copying Lorm’s impersonation of the Misanthrope. Felix Imhof writhed in laughter when he heard the story. “There’s something very attractive in the notion to people who don’t really know you,” he said to Crammon. “It’s far more likely that it’s the other way around, and that Lorm created his impersonation by copying you.” This interpretation was very flattering. Crammon smiled in appreciation of it. Unconsciously he deepened the lines of misanthropy in his chubby ecclesiastical face. When Lorm had his picture taken as Alceste, Crammon took up his stand behind the camera, and gazed steadily at the ripe statuesqueness of the actor’s appearance. It was his intention to learn. The rôle which had been assigned him in the play of the actor’s life--the play that lasted from nine o’clock every morning until eleven at night--began to arouse his dissatisfaction. He desired it to be less episodic. It seemed to him that Lorm, the director of this particular play, should be persuaded to change the cast. He told Lorm so quite frankly. For the actor was no longer to him, as in the days of his youth, the crown and glory of human existence and the vessel of noblest emotions, but a means to an end. Nowadays one was forced to learn of Lorm, to conceal one’s true feelings impenetrably, to gather all one’s energy for the moment of one’s cue, to be thrifty of one’s self, bravely to wear a credible mask, and thus to assure each situation of a happy ending.