And when I had kissed them and walked for the last time
in many months up the flower-bordered path, the scarlet
and pink, and green and gold of that wonderful garden
swam in a mist before my eyes.
Frau Nirlanger was next. When we spoke of Vienna she
caught her breath sharply.
"Vienna!" she repeated, and the longing in her voice
was an actual pain. "Vienna! Gott! Shall I ever see
it again? Vienna! My boy is there. Perhaps--"
"Perhaps," I said, gently. "Stranger things
have happened. Perhaps if I could see them, and talk to
them--if I could tell them--they might be made to
understand. I haven't been a newspaper reporter all
these years without acquiring a golden gift of
persuasiveness. Perhaps--who knows?--we may meet again
in Vienna. Stranger things have happened."
Frau Nirlanger shook her head with a little hopeless
sigh. "You do not know Vienna; you do not know the iron
strength of caste, and custom and stiff-necked pride. I
am dead in Vienna. And the dead should rest in peace."
It was late in the afternoon when Von Gerhard and I
turned the corner which led to the building that held the
Post. I had saved that for the last.
"I hope that heaven is not a place of golden streets,
and twanging harps and angel choruses," I said, softly.
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