“She won’t get that far,” answered Lorm. “Somebody who has always lived on the open sea, and is suddenly transported to a little inland lake, finds it hard to get the new measurements and perspectives. But women are queer creatures.” He sighed and smiled. “Have a nip of whiskey, old man?” Sorrowfully Herbst rocked his Cæsarean head. “Why queer? They are as they are, and one must treat them accordingly. Only one mustn’t be under any mistaken impression as to what one has. For instance: A horseshoe is not birch wood. It looks like a bow, but you can’t bend it--not with all your might. If you string it, the string droops slackly and will never propel your arrow. All right, let’s have your whiskey.” “But occasionally,” Lorm replied cheerfully, and filled the tiny glasses, “you can turn a horseshoe into the finest Damascene steel.” “Bravo! A good retort! You’re as ready as Cardinal Richelieu. Your health!” “If you’ll let me be Richelieu, I’ll appoint you to be my Father Joseph. A great rôle, by the way. Your health, old man!” XII Crammon and Johanna Schöntag planned to drive to Stellingen to see Hagenbeck’s famous zoological gardens, and Crammon begged Christian to lend them his car. They were just about to start when Christian issued from the hotel. “Why don’t you come along?” Crammon asked. “Have you anything better to do? The three of us can have a very amusing time.” Christian was about to refuse, when he caught Johanna’s urgent and beseeching look. She had the art of putting her wishes into her eyes in such a way that one was drawn by them and lost the power to resist. So he said: “Very well, I’ll come along,” and took the seat next to Johanna’s. But he was silent on the whole drive. It was a sunny day of October. They wandered through the park, and Johanna made droll comments on the animals. She stopped in front of a seal, and exclaimed: “He looks quite like Herr Livholm, don’t you think so?” She talked to a bear as though he were a simple sort of man, and fed him bits of sugar. She said that the camels were incredible, and only pretended to look that way to live up to the descriptions in the books of natural history. “They’re almost as ugly as I am,” she added; and then, with a crooked smile: “Only more useful. At least I was told at school that their stomachs are reservoirs of water. Isn’t the world a queer place?” Christian wondered why she spoke so contemptuously of herself. She bent over a stone balustrade, and the sight of her neck somehow touched him. She seemed to him a vessel of poor and hurt things.