She had a genius for making herself comfortable. She seemed to have developed a quietly sexual relationship with her divan. Servants came and went with trays, but amid whatever flurry and agitation, her face was a calm sea. Her expression, when she listened, suggested infinite patience. The lines of her throat were very beautiful. Wilhelm made a note to remark to Hans later that the pictures of Winterhalter were very much like her.

The cook escorted Hans’s grandmother, who seemed no more frail than Bismarck, out to the group. She said her hellos and settled beside her grandson on an ottoman. He kissed her cheek and said, “Why don’t you tell Wilhelm about your Parisian artist? Only don’t say a word about the Prussian whorehouse; you’ll ruin the family reputation.”

The grandmother turned to Wilhelm and said placidly, “He teases me.”

Hans lowered his head to her breast like a horse and she ruffled his hair. Taking his ease, he seemed to Wilhelm the epitome of all those welcomed and sheltered by their families.

They talked away the afternoon. Mary Degele led them through an appreciation of Furtwängler and the Philharmonic. (The family had just been to see the Glorious Seventh, and some Brahms.) Had Wilhelm ever had the opportunity to hear Furtwängler’s Seventh? No, he had not. She handled his chagrin graciously, explaining the maestro’s greatness with wry and demystifying anecdotes, and then, with the artlessness of someone asking him to appreciate a beautiful day, invited him to be their guest in the future.

The cook came back out and lit the lamps. The family heard the story of how the boys had met. On the subject of their aspirations, Wilhelm held forth in a way that was inconceivable in his own home. In this house, apparently, he had courage. He argued for the sublimity of the theater: for the deeper pleasure of moving people directly, in person, and seeing the emotions of one’s own soul entering theirs. Hans argued for the supremacy of the written word and for the writer’s pleasure of moving others across time and space. When in support of that notion he recited from Rilke, Wilhelm was entranced by the quality of the family’s attention.

Herr Ehrenbaum took part in the discussion, encouraged his son in whatever point he was making, and took evident pleasure in what his wife was about to contribute.

Hans’s grandmother announced that she had run out of energy, and Wilhelm wondered if it was time to go. In lieu of asking, he admired aloud a print of the Belvedere by Winckelmann. Mary Degele discussed its acquisition, and remarked on the sensuality of the south, in contrast to the prudishness of the north. Wilhelm felt himself blushing in response, despite all furious attempts to stop.