TWO STORIES
479
there again. He began once more to make notes, overcome by the
suddenly emerging inscription, deeply delighted by the return of the
pictures he had thought lost.
Thus it had been: Magda, his beloved, had been present
in
the
dream; moreover she had not been quarrelsome and
ill
disposed as of
late but altogether friendly, rather quiet but contented and beautiful.
Magda had greeted him with a strange, calm tenderness, had given
him
her hand without kissing him and had explained that now at last
she was going to introduce
him
to her mother and that there at her
mother's he would meet her younger sister who was destined later to
become his beloved and his wife. Her sister was much younger than
she and very fond of dancing, he would
win
her quickest by taking
her dancing.
How beautiful Magda had been in that dream! How all that
was distinctive, lovable, soulful and tender in her being, as those
qualities had existed
in
his
mind at the time of his greatest love for
her, had shone forth from her cool eyes, her clear brow, her heavy,
fragrant hair!
And then
in
the dream she had led him into a house, her
mother's house, the house of her childhood, the house of her soul,
so that she might show him her mother and her small, prettier sister,
for it was she who was destined to be
his
beloved. He could not, how–
ever, any longer remember the house. Only the empty entrance hall
in
which he had to wait, nor could he any longer recall the mother;
only an old woman, a
bonne
or nurse, dressed
in
gray or black had
been visible in the background. But then the little one had come,
the sister, an enchanting child, a girl of perhaps ten or twelve but
in
manner like one of fourteen. In particular her foot in its brown
shoe had been so childlike, so wholly innocent, laughing and un–
aware, not yet entirely lady-like and yet so womanly! She had re–
ceived
his
greeting gaily, and from that moment on Magda had
disappeared, only the little one was there. Remembering Magda's
advice, he had proposed a dance. And at once she had nodded, beam–
ing, and without hesitation had begun to dance, alone, and he had not
even ventured to put
his
arm around her and dance with her be–
cause she was so beautiful and so perfect
in
her childish dance, and
then too because what she was dancing was the Boston, a dance in
which he did not feel sure of himself.
In the midst of
his
struggle to recapture the dream pictures, the
