At a pub outside of the school grounds, his new friend asked the hansom to stop and wait. Inside, he bought them each a tumbler of milk. He seemed as unembarrassed in a foreign place as an Englishman.

He was barrel-chested. His cheekbones were broad, and the unlined quality of his face reminded Wilhelm of bread dough. His lower lip was prominent, as if he were undecided between deep thought and a tantrum.

He chatted about opera and the theater. Wilhelm felt as though they were picking up the thread of a conversation they’d already begun.

He watched his new friend surreptitiously. He could make out the shadow of his eyelashes. He watched him drink his milk. Within a half hour, he was trying to transmit looks in which he’d invested his heart and soul. Hans carried on with his conversation unfazed.

Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele wanted to know what the new arrival’s goals were in life. Intimidated, Wilhelm said, “The theater.” He had never vocalized that ambition before. He’d told his parents he intended to study philology.

He lapsed into embarrassed silence.

Hans volunteered that besides poetry, he had no specific dreams; he was still in the “unencumbered good time” of his youth. He turned his foot inward every so often in order to glance at his shoes, which evidently pleased him.

For the rest of the ride he held forth in a mini-lecture. They might be studying philology, he said, but their ultimate concern was art, which meant they should consider themselves artists. Berlin was open to innovation. The Secessionists had triumphed over the academicians; the galleries were supportive; the press willing to review new directions. Berliners were open-minded, difficult to please, skeptical and critical. In a nutshell, the city was an express, hurtling forward.

Periodically, Wilhelm nodded feebly.

Expressionism, for example, had originated in the provinces—small Bavarian towns, little seaside villages in Schleswig-Holstein—and yet when had the world come to hear of it? When those artists had traveled to Berlin!

The lecture continued later in Wilhelm’s room. Toward twilight, when Wilhelm noted that the administration had scheduled an orientation tea, Hans responded that he had called for another hansom. They were going to Berlin for an orientation of their own.

The hansom deposited them at a streetcar stop. The streetcar arrived in minutes. Following Hans onto it, Wilhelm remembered the way he’d planned to go into Berlin after a month or so of settling into school and working up his courage.

Had Hans been to Berlin before? Wilhelm asked. His family was from the Grunewald, Hans answered. Then, respecting either his friend’s embarrassment or excitement, he kept silent.