4 THE OPPERMANNS He had here all the pe ace of the countryside and in addition, every advantage of the great city. It was only a few years since he had built and furnished this little place in Max Reger Strasse, but he feIt as though he had grown together with the house and the woods, as though each one of the pines sur- rounding hirn were a piece of hirnself. He, the little lake, and the sandy street below, which,. fortunatdy, was closed to mo- tor vehicles, bdonged together. He stood for a time on the balcony, drinking in the morning and the familiar landscape, without thinking much abour any- thing. Then he began to shiver. He was glad he still had a short hour before his daily morning ride. He crept back into the warm hed. But he could not sieep. That damned birthday. After all, it would have been wiser to leave town and escape the whole bother. As he was bere, he might at least have clone his brother Martin the favour of going to the office today. The ernployees would be vexed, considering the sort of people they were, that he would not be there to receive their congratulations pe.rson- alIy. Ah, weil. It was too much of a bore to mope about and listen to people's clumsy congratulations. A self-respeering senior partner ought to take that sort of thing for granted. Senior partner. Rot. No doubt about Mar- rin being the better business man, to say nothing of bis brother-in-law jaques Lavendel and the chief clerks Brieger and Hinrze, No, he was quite right to steer as clear of the business as possible. Gustav Oppermann yawned noisily. A man in his position should damned well be in a better mood on his fiftieth birth- day.. Hadn't those fifty year! been good years? Here he lay, the owner of a fine house that suited him exactly, of a sub- st:aDtial bank account, of a valuable business partnership; he was a collector and acknowledged connoisseur of fine books,

BOOX. ONE: YESTERDAY 5 a gold medallist in sports. His two brothers and sister were fond of him, he had a friend whom he could trust, a hast af entertaining acquaintances, as many wo.men as he wanted, an adorable mistress, What ailed himl If anyone bad reason to be in good humour on a day like this, it was he, Then, damn ir, why wasn't he? What was to blame? Gustav Oppermann snort.ed peevishly, threw himself on his other side, determinedly closed bis heavy eyelids, and kept his strong, virile head motionless on the pillow. He would 'go to sleep now, But his fretful resolution was of no avail, he could not sleep, He smiled like a mischievous boy. He would try a remedj that he had not used since childbood, '''1 am doing well, better, superlatively weil," he thinks. Again and aga in , mechanically: "I am doing well, better, superlatively well." By the time he will have thought this two hundred times, he should be asleep, He thinks it three hundred times and remains awake, Nevertheless, he really was doing welle Physically, mate- rially, and spiritually. He had, he could honestly say, in spite of his fifty years, the appearance of a man in the early forties. And that was how he felt, He was not too rich and not too poor, not too wise and not too foolish. Achievements? Gut- wetter, the author, could never have succeeded without him, He also had put Dr. Frischlin on his feet. k for what he bad published himself, those few essays on eighteenth-century life and literature, they were decent enough books, written by a cultivated man. No more, he didn't deceive himself. All the same they were pretty good for the senior partner of a furni- ture store. He was a mediocre man without any particular tal- ent. Tobe rnediocre was best. He was not ambitious. At any rate, not very. Ten minutes more, then at last he could 'get ready foe bis morning ride, He ground his teeth together lightly, closed bis eyes but he no longer thoughtof sleep, Tobe quite honest,