THE DEAD ARE SILENT     

       By Arthur Schnitzler     

  

       Copyright, 1907, by Courtland H. Young     

   

       HE could endure the quiet waiting in the carriage no longer; it was easier to get out and walk up and down. It was now dark; the few scattered lamps in the narrow side street quivered uneasily in the wind. The rain had stopped, the sidewalks were almost dry, but the rough-paved roadway was still moist, and little pools gleamed here and there.     

       “Strange, isn’t it?” thought Franz. “Here we are scarcely a hundred paces from the Prater, and yet it might be a street in some little country town. Well, it’s safe enough, at any rate. She won’t meet any of the friends she dreads so much here.”      

       He looked at his watch. “Only just seven, and so dark already! It is an early autumn this year... and then this confounded storm I...” He turned his coat-collar up about his neck and quickened his pacing. The glass in the street lamps rattled lightly.     

       “Half an hour more,” he said to himself, “then I can go home. I could almost wish—that that half-hour were over.” He stood for a moment on the corner, where he could command a view of both streets. “She’ll surely come to-day,” his thoughts ran on, while he struggled with his hat, which       threatened to blow away. “It’s Friday.... Faculty meeting at the University; she needn’t hurry home.” He heard the clanging of street-car gongs, and the hour chimed from a nearby church tower. The street became more animated. Hurrying figures passed him, clerks of neighboring shops; they hastened onward, fighting against the storm. No one noticed him; a couple of half-grown girls glanced up in idle curiosity as they went by. Suddenly he saw a familiar figure coming toward him. He hastened to meet her.... Could it be she? On foot?     

       She saw him, and quickened her pace.     

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