began to be aware of the spectator in the
doorway, after all, and strange, searching glances came upon him from
pretty, heated faces; but he stood his ground. Ingeborg and Hans, too,
passed their eyes over him almost at the same moment, with that
complete indifference which almost has the appearance of contempt.
Suddenly, however, he became conscious that from somewhere a glance had
reached him and was resting on him ... He turned his head, and at once
his eyes met the ones he had felt. A girl stood not far from him, with
a pale, narrow, delicate face which he had noticed before. She had not
danced much, the cavaliers had not paid much attention to her, and he
had seen her sitting alone against the wall with bitterly closed lips.
And she stood alone now, too. She wore a bright, filmy dress, like the
others, but under the diaphanous goods her bare shoulders looked sharp
and scanty, and the lean neck went down so far between these pitiful
shoulders that the quiet girl seemed almost a little deformed. She held
her hands in their thin short gloves in front of her flat breast so
that the fingertips barely touched. With lowered head she looked up at
Tonio Kroeger out of black, swimming eyes. He turned away ...

Here stood Hans and Ingeborg quite close to him. He had sat down beside
her,--she was perhaps his sister,--and surrounded by other red-cheeked
children of men they ate and drank, chattered merrily, called out
teasing remarks to each other with ringing voices, and let their
laughter peal out. Could he not approach them a little? Could he not
direct to him or her a jest that would come to his mind, and that they
must at least answer with a smile? It would make him happy, he longed
for it; he would then return more contentedly to his room, with the
consciousness of having established some little community with them. He
thought out what he might say; but he did not find the courage to say
it. And then too it was as of old: they would not understand him, would
listen with disapproval to what he could say. For their language was
not his language.

Now the dance was to begin again, it seemed. The mail clerk revealed an
all-embracing activity. He hurried around and invited every one to
engage partners, pushed and cleared away chairs and glasses with the
aid of the waiter, gave orders to the musicians, and took some awkward
ones, who did not know where to go, by the shoulders and pushed them
along before him. What were they g