hurriedly and impatiently, blowing the smoke up to the ceiling in blue rings, might be the same as yesterday's, though in all probability there had been dozens of others in between. So other members of the troupe than just Sibylle and Fedor were staying at St. Peter's. Perhaps it was cheap, and well known to groups of traveling artists. That could easily be the explanation. The sight of Anja had the effect of calming Friedrich's nerves a little. He still didn't know how to greet her, though—Anja, the clown of the troupe, the girl with the soft features and the red mouth. He was shy of being too intimate with people he didn't really know, even if he happened to have bumped into them once already. He contented himself with nodding to her, to show that he knew who she was, and going on by.
In her room, Sibylle had wrapped herself in a dressing gown and was pacing up and down. It was her tiger walk, as Friedrich called it, a taut, nervous, springy gait. It was a sign that she was thinking, that she was intellectually occupied, invariably hunting for some argument that would bolster her current position, whatever it was. Like Anja, she was smoking in short, swift, vehement puffs. These girls, thought Friedrich, they're under pressure, under pressure from something that sets them apart from the world. "I've ordered breakfast," he said, "and Anja's downstairs, smoking like you. I think of her in her sheepskin as a young refugee, pacing up and down next to her tired horse and her heavily laden cart."
Sibylle straightway got excited: "I don't want you to say anything against Anja [had he done such a thing?], I like her, she's the daughter of a prince, and when she was a child, a babe in arms, she saw Moscow burning." That could very well be, why not, Friedrich was quite used to the Russians that you met in Europe being descended from princes, and even the thing about Moscow burning could perfectly well be true. A little émigrée, in other words. Someone without a will of her own, flotsam. If it came down to it, weren't they all children of the War? He had often thought about that in the time he'd been away from Sibylle. He looked back on the day when the world had been supposed to end. Prophets had come forth all over the land, predicting it. Their words had sprouted like weeds on the farms and in the towns and villages along the Polish frontier. There were smallholders who had sold up, turned everything into cash, and hastened to the bars, to enjoy the end of their time with drinking and eating and whoring—because what better was there to do in their fear of the end, if they weren't to huddle together in prayer like toothless old women? Fires were blazing wherever you looked, along the banks of the Vistula and on the rafts. The bargemen got drunk and so did the peasants. The farmers and the craftsmen. The flat white caps of the Russian Imperial borderers sailed into the air, in pursuit of the elusive spirit of vodka, while they—Friedrich could picture the scene to himself as if he had dreamed it yesterday, even though he had been no more than six years old on the day the world had ended—his mother [the faint whiff of Leichner powder on her face], himself, and that nice, slender, colorful lieutenant, Uncle Thomas from the Uhlans, had stood on the balcony of their house to watch Friedrich's father go up in a balloon from the field behind the gasworks to greet the comet that was coming to destroy the world. It was truly a heroic act, comparable to the flight of Icarus, magnificent, the desire to cut loose from the Earth now trembling in panic, and to steer a course straight for perdition, toward the fixed star, into the arms of the lethal light. But that was typical of Friedrich's father. He would confront the demons! Who said the prophets were mistaken? And people in the Middle Ages were cleverer than we were, when they blocked off their wells and led their animals into the darkness of the light-garlanded stables and sheds at
In her room, Sibylle had wrapped herself in a dressing gown and was pacing up and down. It was her tiger walk, as Friedrich called it, a taut, nervous, springy gait. It was a sign that she was thinking, that she was intellectually occupied, invariably hunting for some argument that would bolster her current position, whatever it was. Like Anja, she was smoking in short, swift, vehement puffs. These girls, thought Friedrich, they're under pressure, under pressure from something that sets them apart from the world. "I've ordered breakfast," he said, "and Anja's downstairs, smoking like you. I think of her in her sheepskin as a young refugee, pacing up and down next to her tired horse and her heavily laden cart."
Sibylle straightway got excited: "I don't want you to say anything against Anja [had he done such a thing?], I like her, she's the daughter of a prince, and when she was a child, a babe in arms, she saw Moscow burning." That could very well be, why not, Friedrich was quite used to the Russians that you met in Europe being descended from princes, and even the thing about Moscow burning could perfectly well be true. A little émigrée, in other words. Someone without a will of her own, flotsam. If it came down to it, weren't they all children of the War? He had often thought about that in the time he'd been away from Sibylle. He looked back on the day when the world had been supposed to end. Prophets had come forth all over the land, predicting it. Their words had sprouted like weeds on the farms and in the towns and villages along the Polish frontier. There were smallholders who had sold up, turned everything into cash, and hastened to the bars, to enjoy the end of their time with drinking and eating and whoring—because what better was there to do in their fear of the end, if they weren't to huddle together in prayer like toothless old women? Fires were blazing wherever you looked, along the banks of the Vistula and on the rafts. The bargemen got drunk and so did the peasants. The farmers and the craftsmen. The flat white caps of the Russian Imperial borderers sailed into the air, in pursuit of the elusive spirit of vodka, while they—Friedrich could picture the scene to himself as if he had dreamed it yesterday, even though he had been no more than six years old on the day the world had ended—his mother [the faint whiff of Leichner powder on her face], himself, and that nice, slender, colorful lieutenant, Uncle Thomas from the Uhlans, had stood on the balcony of their house to watch Friedrich's father go up in a balloon from the field behind the gasworks to greet the comet that was coming to destroy the world. It was truly a heroic act, comparable to the flight of Icarus, magnificent, the desire to cut loose from the Earth now trembling in panic, and to steer a course straight for perdition, toward the fixed star, into the arms of the lethal light. But that was typical of Friedrich's father. He would confront the demons! Who said the prophets were mistaken? And people in the Middle Ages were cleverer than we were, when they blocked off their wells and led their animals into the darkness of the light-garlanded stables and sheds at
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