Produced by Henry Flower and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) THE EUROPEAN LIBRARY EDITED BY J. E. SPINGARN [Illustration] THE WORLD’S ILLUSION BY JACOB WASSERMANN AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BY LUDWIG LEWISOHN THE SECOND VOLUME: RUTH [Illustration] NEW YORK HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE 1920 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, INC. THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY RAHWAY, N. J. CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME PAGE Conversations in the Night 1 Ruth and Johanna 111 Inquisition 240 Legend 403 THE WORLD’S ILLUSION CONVERSATIONS IN THE NIGHT I When Wolfgang visited his home during the Christmas vacation he congratulated his father on the latter’s accession to a new dignity; Albrecht Wahnschaffe had been made a Privy Councillor. He found the house changed--silent and dull. From a brief conversation with his father he learned that Christian was causing anxiety and excitement. He listened avidly, but did not succeed in gathering any details. Strangers had told him of Christian’s sale of his properties; but he had no notion of the meaning of this step. He had but one long talk with his mother. She seemed to him to be morbid and to treat him with an indifference that wounded him. Rumours of all kinds reached him. The major-domo informed him that Herr von Crammon had spent a couple of days at the castle, almost constantly closeted with its mistress. They had sent an enormously long telegram to Berlin, offering some one a bribe of forty or fifty thousand marks. The telegram had not been addressed directly to the person in question, but to an intermediary. The reply must have been unfavourable, for on its receipt Herr von Crammon had announced that he himself would proceed to Berlin. Wolfgang decided to write to Crammon, but his letter remained unanswered.