During this same half hour the countess was sitting at a desk at her balcony window, writing a letter to Fessler. She had taken her pen in hand a while ago, but the entrancing view before her caused her to set it back down again. High above the hillsides clad in vineyards and forests, silvery clouds were drifting, while in the valley below, the heat of the day had already settled in, growing more oppressive with every moment. A small pennant that marked the shooting range drooped from its flagpole and only stirred when there was a passing breeze. But suddenly came the sound of a single drum stroke, as if at random, and the countess, thus interrupted in her musings, took up her pen again and wrote:

Dear Friend,

There have been some changes to my existence here since last week, and since yesterday we have been living the high life. Egon Asperg arrived early in the morning and with him young Pejevics, who had been in England for several weeks for the racing, as you may know. I was heartily glad and resolved to spend a pleasant day with them, but would have failed in this, had I not been able to recruit as auxiliaries the two young ladies whom I mentioned to you recently. Two young actresses are naturally more interesting than an aunt of nearly seventy. And now more than ever. For those things which for us constitute life itself seem to have died out in the hearts of the current generation, more comprehensively than in the previous one. My brother treats them with mockery, at least; Count Egon, only with silence and indifference. But I am not accusing, only reporting.