Aside from the Flying Dutchman, the italicized bits are what I'm unsure about.
After the stormy days, all the more beautiful ones followed. With widely extended wings, the sun lay on the sea and let her flashing lights grasp at and touch his back in high-spirited play.
Then came the great heat. It scorched the beach so that it burned like fire under foot, it forced its way into the lightly built buildings and firmly nested itself in them so that even nights with open windows brought no coolness. It forced its way into every pore, it made steam rise from every stone, it made every leaf swell. Like a steel plate the sea lay completely motionless, as if it were not even water anymore, and in such a deep blue that against it the cloudless sky appeared with an almost pale clarity. In the silver-gleaming streaks that stretcht across the dark blue, now and then sailboats emerged and stood fixed and motionless. In the border however between the sea and the sky
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ran a ship, leaving smoke behind it in a long line as straight as an arrow, so shadowy its course that one thought the Flying Dutchman glided through the ghostly still water.
Now even life stopt off in Zoppot. In the "seastar" every room had been bookt for weeks in advance. A society of men from all countries had assembled there: to the Germans, who were in the majority, not only Poles and Russians, but also Frenchmen and Englishmen; because the sport week, the big sensation of the summer, was just around the corner.
Monsieur Guerard now sat by the side of his very slender, charming wife at every meal, but still had eyes and words for the pretty Nuscha, who had taken over the place across from them. And at Hans' table had sat two Englishmen and a flaxen-haired miss, the sister of the one, whom likewise had come for the sport week and spoke of nothing else but tennis, in which they were masters. He steered clear of them. He had never loved this nation and on all of his trips had gone out of his way to avoid it. So he stayed on his own more than ever.
But Nuscha, however, he saw more often, even outside of the building. Actually, she was everywhere: in the Kur house, at the concerts, where she moved in the most dense stream of people, which she liked best, on the sea bridge, where her face with lively, restless eyes searching and examining scanned the passers-by.
But even on his lonely hikes he met her. Afterwards she sat in any secret spot on the dune or on the beach and had a long notebook on her lap in which
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she made marks with a large pencil. Once he surprised her, as he approached her from behind, unnoticed. But she quickly closed the notebook.
"Are you a poet or an artist?" he askt.
"Neither, I'm much too prosaic for that. But now and then I write down a thought that just comes to me. Or I make for myself a little sketch of the surroundings. One learns it soon, if one travels so much."
"Couldn't I see it once? Or maybe you'll read something to me?"
"It wouldn't pass your criticism," she replied curtly and put the notebook in the black folder that she took with her on her morning hikes.
They went homewards together. It was hot again, almost unbearably; with merciless heat the sun beat on the beach. They had chosen the shady path on the big street. Nuscha chatted in her old manner, but not longer as personally as earlier, she almost didn't speak of herself at all. Generally, she had become more reserved towards him since that evening up on the cliff of Adlerhorst.
Behind them sounded a blaring signal, the horn of a car, but different, as if it was leading something other than a motor vehicle. Nuscha broke off in the middle of a word, rushed close to the street, and remained standing there.
With relatively slow speed, the motor vehicle, which was half closed, came past. Hans made out the contours of a slender female figure that sat inside with several other ladies.
"The crown princess! Finally I have seen her! And how pleasantly she returned my greetings and lookt at me!" cried Nuscha coming back, and her whole face beamed.
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