“The way he quotes,” Agathe picked up the thread, “is to go as far as Richard Strauss in discussing music, or as far as Picasso in painting; but he’ll never, not even as an example of something that’s wrong, bring up a name that hasn’t become a fixture in the newspapers at least by attracting their disapproval!”

That was indeed the case. That was what Ulrich had been searching for in his memory. He looked up. He was pleased by the taste and acuity that were revealed in Agathe’s reply. “So that’s how he became a leader in the course of time, by being one of the first who followed that course in its wake,” he added, laughing. “All who come after him see him ahead of them! But do you like our leading figures?”

“I don’t know. Anyway, I don’t quote.”

“Still, let’s be humble,” Ulrich said. “Your husband’s name stands for a program that many people regard as the best there is. His work represents a small piece of solid progress. His rise in the world won’t be long in coming. Sooner or later he’ll hold a university chair, even though for years he had to eke out a living as a schoolteacher; and I, you see, who had opportunities laid out before me on a straight path, am now in a position where I probably wouldn’t even get a lectureship. That’s something!”

Agathe was disappointed, which was probably why her face assumed the porcelain-smooth and impassive expression of a lady as she amiably replied: “I don’t know, perhaps you need to show consideration for Hagauer?”

“When is he expected?” Ulrich asked.

“Not before the funeral. He has no time to spare. But under no conditions is he to stay in this house. I won’t allow it!”

“As you wish!” Ulrich said with unexpected resolution. “I will pick him up and drop him off at a hotel. And if you want, I will say to him: ‘Your room is reserved for you here!’”

Agathe was surprised, and suddenly delighted. “That will annoy him tremendously, because it costs money, and I’m sure he expects to stay here!” Her expression had instantly regained a wild and mischievous look, like that of a child contemplating a prank.

“What are the arrangements, by the way?” her brother asked. “Does this house belong to you, to me, or to both of us? Is there a will?”

“Papa left me a big package that’s supposed to contain everything we need to know.” They went to the study, which was behind the room where the body lay.

Again they glided through candlelight and floral scent, past the horizon of those two eyes that could no longer see. For a second, in the flickering semidarkness, Agathe was no more than a shimmering mist of gold, gray, and rose. They took the package containing the will back to their tea table, where they then forgot to open it.

For as they sat down, Agathe confided to her brother that to all intents and purposes she had been living apart from her husband, though under the same roof. She didn’t say for how long it had been that way.