happy people could be.

He ordered a carriage, a comfortable landau, both to give himself a
pleasure and also to distract his wife, who seemed to him to be graver
and more lost in thought than ever, and went for a drive with her. They
drove along the well-known roads through the Grunewald, and also got
out now and then when the carriage forced its way more slowly through
the sand, and walked beside it for a bit along the foot-path, which the
fallen pine-needles had made smooth and firm.

They came to Schildhorn. The red glow of evening lay across the
water; the sun could no longer be seen in all its splendour, a dusky,
melancholy peace lay over the Havel and the pines. Kate had never
thought the wood was so large. All at once she shivered: ah, the
cemetery where they buried the suicides lay over there. She did
not like to look in that direction, she pressed her eyes together
nervously. All at once a young lad moved across her mental
vision--young and fresh and yet ruined already--many a mother's son.

She shuddered and wanted to hurry past, and still something drew her
feet irresistibly to the spot in the loose sand that had been enclosed.
She could not help it, she had to stop. Her eyes rested thoughtfully on
the ugly, uncared-for graves: had those who rested there found peace? A
couple of branches covered with leaves and a few flowers that she had
plucked on the way fell out of her hand. The evening wind blew them on
to the nearest grave; she let them lie there. Her heart felt extremely
sad.

"Kate, do come," Paul called. "The carriage has been waiting for us
quite a long time."

She felt very depressed. Fears and suspicions, that she could
not speak of to anybody, crowded upon her. Wolfgang was
unsteady--but was he bad? No, not bad--not yet. O God, no, she would
not think that! Not bad! But what would happen? How would it end?
Things could never be right again--how could they? A miracle would have
to happen then, and miracles do not happen nowadays.

A gay laugh made her start. All the tables were occupied in the
restaurant garden; there were so many young people there and so much
light-heartedness, and so many lovers. They had got into their carriage
again and were now driving slowly past the garden, so they saw all the
light-coloured blouses and the gaily trimmed hats, all the finery of
the lower middle-class.

Hark, there was that gay laugh again. A girl's loud laugh, a real
hearty one, and now: "Aha, cat