he old willows, something which would
slap it in the face, and she bent forward and kissed Moritz. "But
Billy, I don't understand," stammered Moritz, turning a deep red, but
Billy had gone.

The evening came, with tea on the porch. As the moon rose late, the
garden lay there in profound darkness; the wall of clouds had risen
higher in the sky, while the western sky was still covered with stars.
At times the blue gleam of a lightning flash flicked across the garden,
and a sudden gust shook at the trees, so that one could hear the fruit
falling upon the turf in all directions. On the porch only the red tips
of the burning cigars were visible, and the voices of the speakers took
on something soft and reassured, as if they were trying to attune
themselves to the dying sounds that were straying through the night.

Lisa was sitting beside the lieutenant and speaking of Greece. "You
see, Marathon, what did Marathon use to be to me? A date, 490, I
believe, but on that evening, with the evening glow falling across the
plain, it sounds improbable, but I said to--to Katakasianopulos, I
said, 'Katakasianopulos, I feel Miltiades here.'"

"Certainly, very remarkable," said the lieutenant. He was now so
passionately fond of hunting that he went out every day to shoot
partridge; in the evenings he was very tired and could follow the
conversation but feebly.

The professor was again talking with Count Hamilcar about dreams. "A
dream is for us a reality like any other," he opined.

"Yes," rejoined the count somewhat indistinctly, for he did not remove
his cigar from his mouth in speaking, "only a reality which we always
cross out again on awaking. Those are experiences which we always throw
into the wastebasket again."

"Good, very good," the professor continued eagerly, "but we do the
same thing in our so-called waking life. When I awake, I look upon the
dream with my waking eyes, and then it seems unreal to me; but these
waking eyes are simply not focused for dreams. And then it is this way
with all experiences: I firmly believe what I am experiencing at one
moment, and the next moment I look back upon it and it seems to me
unreal and false and I strike it out. So, if you please, the sky is now
for me a great, beautiful hall, in which the many tiny shining lights
are standing side by side and twinkling at each other in the pretty
summer night. That is real: what is it to me that I may perhaps look at
it tomorrow through a telesc