ollonius had never done him.

But, oh the ungrateful one! He would not allow himself to be outshone.
Fritz Nettenmair danced jovially, as one who is at home in the world
and knows how to treat the species that wears long hair and aprons;
his brother was a stiff figure in comparison. He did not keep time
with his head, nor, if the step was made with the left foot on the
down beat, throw the upper part of his body to the right and vice
versa; he did not now and again, with the boldness of a genius, slide
across the hall and outdistance other couples. He danced neither
jovially nor as one who is familiar with the world and knows how to
treat the species that wears long hair and aprons; yet all eyes
remained fixed on him, and Fritz Nettenmair outdid himself in vain.

It was the dullest ball that Fritz Nettenmair had ever experienced; it
could not have been more so if Fritz Nettenmair had stayed at home.
Fritz Nettenmair proclaimed the fact with mighty oaths, and the
important people who had drunk his champagne agreed with him in his
opinion, as they always did.

Some of the important women expressed to Frau Nettenmair their
righteous and friendly indignation at her brother-in-law. That he had
not asked his sister-in-law for the first dance betrayed an
unpardonable disparagement of her. Frau Nettenmair, who felt the
universal wrong done to her husband as deeply as if it had been done
to herself, said that her brother-in-law had long known that she would
only have turned him down if he had. But still Apollonius was only
admired and honored more and more, and consequently the ball only
became still duller. It became so dull, in fact, that Fritz Nettenmair
left with his wife at an hour when as a rule he was only just
beginning to be really jovial. Nevertheless he heaped coals of fire on
his ungrateful brother's head. He asked the girl in his brother's name
to allow Apollonius to accompany her home. Then he went out of the
little room at the side into the hall again to his wife, and with her
left the house, to the unfeigned despair of the important people, who
were still thirsty for champagne.

After he had performed his enforced knightly service for his lady,
Apollonius found the door of the paternal home open and all its
inmates already asleep. At least there was no light to be seen
anywhere and everything was still. His brother had assigned to him the
little room at the left of the second-story piazza. Fortunately for
Ap