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Updated: June 14, 2025
Bertha heard her say in a soft voice, as she did so: "Dearest!" Rupius, however, continued to stare before him as though he shrank from meeting his wife's glance. Both were silent and seemed to be absorbed in themselves, as though Bertha was not in the room.
As she walked by the house of Herr Rupius she deliberated for a moment whether she should not go up and see him there and then. But she had a vague fear of being immediately involved again in the agitated atmosphere of the household, and she deferred the visit until the afternoon.
To Bertha the whole period of Frau Rupius' youth appeared as if radiant with bright sunbeams, a youth replete with happiness, replete with hope; and it seemed to her, moreover, that Frau Rupius' voice assumed a fresher tone when she went on to relate about the travels which she and her husband had undertaken in the early days of their married life.
Bertha felt that somehow a considerable time had elapsed since she had started on her walk, and that it was long since she had spoken to anyone. The church clock struck six. So, then, scarcely an hour had passed since she had left the house, and an even shorter time since she had stopped in the street to chat with the beautiful Frau Rupius.
"That might be a chapter, too," he said, with a smile, when she had come to an end; then he added more softly, as though ashamed of his indelicate joke: "There must certainly also be gentlemen in that little town who are not paralysed." She felt that she had to take poor Herr Rupius under her protection.
She suddenly remembered that she had bought a newspaper; she took it up and turned over the pages assiduously. The train drew near to Vienna. Frau Rupius closed her book and put it in the travelling-bag. She looked at Bertha with a certain tenderness, as at a child who must soon be sent away alone to meet an uncertain destiny.
She would write to the effect that she was going to Vienna on such and such a day and was to be found at such and such a place.... Oh, if she only had someone with whom she could talk the whole thing over!... She thought of Frau Rupius she had a genuine yearning to tell her everything.
She knew this for a fact because Herr Rupius had told her so himself on one occasion when she had called on him and his wife was in Vienna. At that moment Herr Rupius seemed to her to be a particularly pitiful figure, for, as he was being wheeled past her in his invalid's chair, she had, in reading the paper, lighted upon the name of one whom she regarded as a happy man.
Bertha's painful agitation became merged in her embarrassment. "You are certainly mistaken," was all that she could answer. Rupius hastily drew up the rug, which was on the point of slipping down off his knees. He seemed to find it chilly. As he continued to speak, he drew the rug higher and higher, until finally he held it with both hands pressed against her breast.
She could see into everybody's thoughts! "No, at that time there had not been anything to tell," she repeated, gazing at Frau Rupius with a kind of reverence. "Just think you will probably find it hard to believe what I am going to tell you now, but I should feel a liar if I kept it secret." "Well?"
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