Martha took her plate to a table where Florian sat alone with his newspaper and his soft moustache, his mother having returned to Vienna.

‘May I?’

‘Of course.’ The young man gestured. It was known that at lunchtime the members of staff might move from table to table; the meal was informal and the only rule was that patients wouldn’t talk about their health.

‘May I fetch you some wine, Fräulein?’

‘No, thank you. The water from the spring suits me fine. Wine tonight, though. Ah, Charlotte. Have you two met?’

Florian stood up and shook hands, looking modest but entitled, like a student who has received the top academic prize of his year.

Charlotte sat down with her plate of vegetables from the kitchen garden with a slice of ham and mustard. She put Florian at his ease on the matter of twins, fraternal and monozygotic, mistaken identities and uncanny coincidences. Soon they were on to politics.

‘Is it true what I’ve read in London,’ said Charlotte, sipping on her apple juice, ‘that there are two private armies in Austria and that they’re on the verge of civil war?’

‘There were two,’ Florian corrected her, ‘but the Schutzbund, who support the Social Democrats, have been driven underground. They were banned by the chancellor, Herr Dollfuss. So now there is only one private army, the Heimwehr, who support the old Catholic right wing. The provincials in other words.’

‘Can he ban the Schutzbund? Just like that?’ said Charlotte.

‘The question is whether we should have private armies at all.’

‘And should we?’ said Martha.

‘No. It’s a result of the terms imposed on us after the war. The reparations we’ve had to make to the Allies. Parliament is paralysed and the country is divided. Vienna against the rest. And the pro-Germans against the antis.’

‘I understand,’ said Charlotte. ‘But it doesn’t seem fair to ban only one side. And didn’t the Heimwehr defend Carinthia against the Slovenes after the war? When there was no Austrian army?’

‘Yes, but Dollfuss has banned the Communists and the Nazis as well.’

‘So who has he not banned? Who’s left?’

‘Just his own party,’ said Florian, ‘the Fatherland Front. He said Parliament had suspended itself.’

‘So Parliament’s banned, too?’

Florian laughed. ‘Yes, since the spring. He’s just one big man for banning things. Ban, ban, ban. Though Mussolini supports him.’

‘Is that important?’ said Charlotte.

‘Dollfuss thinks it is.’

‘Does anyone else back him?’

‘No. Certainly not Herr Hitler. Can I fetch you some dessert, ladies?’

After lunch, the sisters went for a walk in the grounds. ‘You should have lunch with Florian every day,’ said Martha as they went under the chestnut tree. ‘You’ve done more for his spirits than all Franz’s powders and my listening.’

‘He doesn’t seem very seriously ill,’ said Charlotte. ‘He probably just needs to see less of his mother.’

‘Talking of mothers …’

‘Yes, I spoke to her on the telephone. It was quite a palaver. They had to switch the call through Vienna. Anyway, they’re fine. I told her I was coming back on Sunday. Harriet spent a morning at kindergarten and it all passed off without tears.’