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My answer had so effectively put him in his place that he actually seemed cowed: he even hung his head as he walked off. After a while I shot a pigeon, and loaded again. While I was doing so, I caught sight of Glahn standing half hidden behind a tree, watching me to see if I really loaded. A little later he started singing a hymn and a wedding hymn into the bargain.
Swaying, fighting frantically for foothold, there on the chasm’s awful edge, he balanced for an instant; fought for equilibrium. Von Glahn, rigid, watched him.
But there was very little water in the river, and so it remained until the rainy season. We shot wild pigeons and partridges, and saw a couple of panthers one afternoon; parrots, too, flew over our heads. Glahn was a terribly accurate shot; he never missed. But that was merely because his gun was better than mine; many times I too shot terribly accurately.
"No, don't let us talk about that, please. Glahn, I have been thinking of you; you could take off your jacket and get wet through for another's sake; I come to you ..." I shrugged my shoulders and went on: "I should advise you to take the Doctor instead. What have you against him? A man in the prime of life, and a clever head you should think it over." "Oh, but do listen a minute ..."
You shall go with me when I leave here; I will marry you, do you hear? and we'll go to our own country and live there. You'd like that, wouldn't you?" And that impressed her too. Maggie grew lively and talked a lot as we walked. She only mentioned Glahn once; she asked: "And will Glahn go with us when we go away?" "No," I said. "He won't. Are you sorry about that?" "No, no," she said quickly.
One morning, just as we were entering the forest, Glahn gripped me by the arm and whispered: "Stop!" At the same moment he threw up his rifle and fired. It was a young leopard he had shot, I might have fired myself, but Glahn kept the honour to himself and fired first. Now he'll boast of that later on, I said to myself. We went up to the dead beast.
I put on my jacket again. "Where are you going?" I asked sullenly. "No nowhere ... I can't understand what made you take off your jacket like that ..." "What have you done with the Baron to-day?" I went on. "The Count can't be out at sea on a day like this." "Glahn, I just wanted to tell you something ..." I interrupted her: "May I beg you to convey my respects to the Duke?"
'To Glahn, I answered,'to ask him not to forget me... Since one o'clock I have been waiting here. I stood by a tree and saw you coming you were like a god. I loved your figure, your beard, and your shoulders, loved everything about you... Now you are impatient; you want to go, only to go; I am nothing to you, you will not look at me ..." I had stopped.
The epilogue is disproportionately long; the portion written as by another hand is all too recognizably in the style of the rest. And with all his chivalrous sacrifice and violent end, Glahn is at best a quixotic hero. Men, as men, would think him rather a fool, and women, as women, might flush at the thought of a cavalier so embarrassingly unrestrained.
'No, thank you, I answered. 'If only I dared take your little hand, he said. I did not answer I was thinking of something else. He laid a little box in my lap. I opened the box, and found a brooch in it. There was a coronet on the brooch, and I counted ten stones in it... Glahn, I have that brooch with me now; will you look at it?
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