This Month's Installment
As always, the italicized parts are what I'm unsure of.Only once did he notice that she handed to the Russian a letter that she had just finished, that he read it through very diligently, made a few improvements in it, then gave it back to her and that they now negotiated quietly with one an-other for a long time, where he was very calm, she however spoke lively, almost passionately to him.
Soon after the meal, they went out of the "Seastar," always alone, only rarely did one see a stranger by her side, whose conspicuous clothes indicated his foreign nationality. They never came farther than the casino; but even there, one saw them either at a concert or on the stage. Some wanted to know that they belonged to an
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elegant Russian club who met for coffee in a reserved room, others made enigmatic expressions and hinted that one played secret games of chance there.
It was on a late evening, the sounds of the Kurkapelle had just faded away, Hans had listened to them from a quiet place in the garden of the "Seastar"; he loved the music that came out of the distance as if on mysterious pinions that in the area gave him less.
He had gone up to his room and immediately wanted to close the shutters because he saw the moon rise out of a cloud; it was no longer its full disc, it was already waning. But its light was strong and shone far enough to cover the whole sea in its silvery-bluish haze. Thin clouds stretched over its smoothed disc, and through them he saw, now milk-white, now pale green, a gleaming, weaving veil spinning over the calm surface of the water. The world lay there like an impenetrable mystery, full of quiet foreboding and celebrated size. In soft, blurred lines the coast stretched out with its jutting mountains, its deep, dark bays, and the garland of its woods.
It didn't keep him in his room, he put his coat on, went slowly down the stairs, and walkt outside. It would be a sin to sleep through this night.
Admittedly, he appeared to be the only one to whom such an adventurous notion had come. Shrouded in deep darkness lay the big house, only in the room on the first floor that the Russian had chosen for himself and his company did he see light gleaming through the cracks of the firmly closed shutters. He askt the gatekeeper, who had just put the guests' clothes
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and boots together in the hall for the house door key and set out on his hike, up the south promenade, over the sea bridge to the north promenade, then further on the lonely beach along the way to Adlershorst. In a small wooded area above the beach, through which he had once gone with Nuscha in a raging storm, he lingered for a longer time. Today everything was deeply quiet, nothing to hear but the dreamy surging of the sea under him, the muffled murmuring of the pine trees, and now and then the call of a night bird.
He could not tear himself away, so wonderfully spoke this nighttime, moon-flooded seclusion to his receptive soul. Wrapt in his coat, he sat on a fallen tree trunk for almost half an hour.
I have no additional comments this month.
