A week later, they were once again settled in the old Petofy mansion, and on the very next day, the count received a note delivered by Andras, the intermediary between the two wings, in which Judith briefly stated that she had spoken with Franziska. Franziska had not seemed greatly surprised, or at least had been completely calm, and was now awaiting his visit.

It was eleven o’clock when the note came into his hands, and before an hour had passed, he was on his way to Salesiner Street. Life on the fashionable Ringstrasse felt even more carefree than usual today, and as he went from the Old Town into the adjoining district, the building itself, standing there in the midday sunshine, seemed to betoken only happiness and joy.

Upstairs he met Hannah, who, with some slight embarrassment, invited him in. The young lady was at rehearsal; but she would be back very soon.

The room into which Hannah led him was the same one in which Franziska had tried to describe the countess's cercle intime, after that first gathering. There was nothing of the boudoir about it, nothing of that atmosphere of Russian patchouli generally associated with the living arrangements of young actresses. Rather, there was a typically North German simplicity and order and a cleanliness that might have come from Holland itself. On the table by the sofa was a marble bowl with vine leaves and strawberries in it and, next to that, a jewelry stand, left there as if by chance, or perhaps in haste, as if its owner had spent too long getting dressed.