8 THE OPPEllMANNS smile spread over his face, he put tbe lener to one side, quite out of reach, He was going to postpone reading it, like a child who leaves the most coveted morsel to the last. He began to read the other letters. Birthday wishes, It was nice to have them, but they were hardly exciting. He reached for Anna's letter, balanced it in his hand, took up the paper-knife. Then he hesitated. He was really glad that a visitor came in to dis- turb hirn. The visitor was his brother Martin. Martin Oppermann came towards him, a Iittle heavy on his feet, as usual. Gustav loved his brother and wished hirn weil hut this did not pre- vent his quietly noting that Martin, though he was two years younger, looked the elder, The Oppermanns resembled one another; everyone said so, it must be true. Martin had a large head, like his; his eyes also lay rarher deeply in their sockets. But Martin's eyes had a slightly dull, oddly sleepy expression. Everything about him was clumsier, fleshier. Martin stretched out both hands to hirn. "What shall I say? I can only hope that everything will stay just as it is for you. I wish this most heartily." The Oppermanns had deep voices, With the exception of Gustav, they disliked showing their feel- ings. Everything about Martin was reserved and dignified. Bot Gustav was weil aware of his sincerity. Martin Oppermann had brought his birthday gift with him, Schlüter fetched it in. The coverings were stripped off a big parcel, revealing a picture. It was a hust portrait, oval in shape, Above a stifl collar in the fashion of the eighties, a large head rested on a rather short neck. The head was fleshy and the brow, above deeply set rat her sleepy eyes-the Oppermann eyes-was heavy and protruding. The expression was shrewd, thoughtful, and kindly. It was the head of Immanuel Opper- mann, their grandfather, the founder of the furniture firm of Oppermann. This was his likeness at the age of sixry, shortly after Gustav's birth,

BOOK ONE: YESTERDAY 9 Martin placed the picture on the big desk, and held it there in his ßeshy, well-kept hands, Gustav looked out of his own brown, pensive eyes into the brown, shrewd eyes of his grancl- father Immanuel. No, the picture was not very remarkable. It was old-fashioned and had Jirrle artistic value, But the four Oppermanns prized it, Ir had been dear and familiar to them from their early youth, undoubtedly they saw more in it than there aetually was. Gustav liked to keep the light walls of his hause undecorated, Only one picture hung in the entire hause, in the library. But it had always been one of his dearest wishes to have rhis portrait of Grandfather Immanuel for his study. Martin, on the other hand, believed it should hang in the pri- vate office of the business. Gustav, weIl as he got on with his brother in other respeets, had taken it amiss that he had been denied possession of the picture. Thus the sight of rhe portrait filled hirn with joy and satis- faction, He knew it had been a wrench for Martin to part from it. Beaming, he expressed his pleasure and gratitude volubly. When Martin had gone, Gustav called Schlüter and in- structed him how to hang the picture, He had lang made up his mind where it should go. Now it was really going to be put there.. Gustav waited impatiently for Schlüter to finish. At last it was ready. The study, the library, and the third room of the ground floor, the breakfast-room, led into one another. Slowly and thoughtfully Gustav let his eyes pass from the por- trait of lmmanuel Oppermann, his grandfather, his past, to the other, the hitherto unique picture in the hause, the one in the Iibrary, the portrait of Sybil Rauch, his mistress, his pres- enr, No, the pieture of Immanuel Opperrnann was really not a work of art. The painter, Alexander Joels, who had executed ir on commission for the friends of Irnmanuel Oppermann, bad at that time been grotesquely over-rated, Today he was