BOOK ONE: YESTERDA Y 51 people would drink. Chief clerk Karl Theodor Hintze was a stickler for formality. It would be a shame to gulp down such splendid stuff as this gloriously fragrant old French cognac without a few suitable words of introduction. In his sharp rnili- tary tones, in the midst of a universal silence, he gave eloquent expression to the wish that the brothers and sister Oppermann and the firm of Oppermann might endure for many more dec- ades in the flourishing and thriving position, in the prosperity, so to speak, in which the cornpany saw them now. Not until he had finished did the guests begin to drink. 8 Sybil Rauch took her departure with the rest. Her disreputa- ble little car came in for the jesting comments it always did. As soon as the others were out of sight, she drove back. She had promised Gustav to spend a little more time with hirn alone. The room was full of smoke. Schlüter and Bertha had gone to bed, The temporary staff of assistants had left. They went out on to the terrace overlooking the garden. It was very cold, there was a cloudy moon, the Grunewald pines stood stiff and motionless. Syhil was astounded at the change in the view, but Gustav knew it in every phase. He shivered in the chilI evening. They turned back, and soon went to bed. Gustav, Sybil's long, narrow head on his breast, lay tired and happy. Yawning, at peace, he told her, for the fourth time, how glad he was that the contract for the Lessing biography had given hirn a task for the ensuing year. Sybillay awake. As she wanted to get home before daybreak it was not worthwhile going to sleep. As though he were a

THE OPPERMANNS stranger, she Iooked at the sleeping man, with curiosity, with- out pity. Did he really believe that the Lessing biography was "a task"? The Lessing biography would be a thick volume. There was a slim little volume by Friedrich Wilhelm Gutwet- ter entitled: The Prospects of Caucasian Ciuilization, Sybil Rauch thrust out her underlip scornfully, like a naughty chilcl. She got up and dressed, shivering a little, quietly. Gustav .slept on, She went into the study. She had left her handbag lying there. On the desk lay a lot of papers covered with writing. Sybil was an inquisitive girl. She rummaged about among them. She found a postcard. "Dear Sir: Take note of this for a11 your life: It is upon us to begin the work, It is not upon us to complete it. Yours very sincerely, Gustav Oppermann." Sybil looked at the address and the signature, read the card twice, and smiled. Her friend Gustav was an amusing man. He knew many useful truths. She carefully put the papers back again inro the disorder in which she had found them. She drove horne in her little, open, shabby car, through the cold night. Her friend Gustav was one of those who had "arrived," there was DO doubt of that. Ir had been very easy to see that today, when he had arrangecl that exhibition of the things that made him rich and happy. Sybil Rauch was a shrewd, sceptical girl. She was sceptical also regarding herself, she did not over-estimate her talent, She knew that her pretty little stories were more scrupulously devised than the average productions. She took a lot of trouble over them, she had de- veloped her individual style. But her secret ambition was to